Density can be dangerous.

Or at least, that’s what Dr. Selwyn Vickers, dean of the UAB School of Medicine, thinks.

“Until we get a vaccine, we will be different. We will be back to a new normal,” Vickers said.

Vickers is part of a newly created University of Alabama System task force created to explore issues and possible solutions for reopening its three schools campuses in Birmingham, Huntsville, and Tuscaloosa this fall. System Chancellor Finis St. John appointed Vickers and UA System Counsel Katie Osburne to lead the force, which includes UAB doctors and administrators from the three campuses and leading infectious disease expert Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo.

According to the university system, the task force will “consider testing measures, enhanced cleaning, classroom procedures, housing policies, security and wellness programs, and the provision of personal protective equipment in developing a comprehensive plan to protect students, faculty and staff.”

Vickers said the force is essentially tasked with providing a “map for how campuses might return to some level of engagement” in the fall.

Some things the task force is looking at are how many people are allowed in classrooms and dorms, if classes should be done in a hybrid setting with online and on-campus work, and of course, sporting events. “All of those things will probably have to be creatively done to limit the risk and injury to human life, but also allow some movement back to a normal world until we get a vaccine done,” Vickers said.

When deciding if it’s safe for students and administrators to come back to campus in the fall, Vickers said there are several things he and his colleagues are looking at.

First, he mentioned easily accessible testing with fast results and testing for those who have already been exposed to the virus. Social distancing principles, along with guidelines for masks, will also be important to consider. Vickers said the force will look at data to see if the three cities housing its universities are experiencing a downward trend in COVID-19 cases, to ensure the disease isn’t escalating.

Lastly, but equally as important, Vickers said students and faculty will need to have a sophisticated way of tracing with whom they come in contact. He said he didn’t know if that would come in an app for students or through a web-based platform, but that some type of tracing will be “vital.”

“What I think will be important is whether we have the ability to put those factors in place,” Vickers said. “Whether we have really rapid testing for tracing, that is serology or testing to see if the virus is in mass numbers….those factors will be really important to what degree people can come back and gather in some significant space.”

He added, “They’re not perfect. We’re going to still have to have some principles around distancing and density.”

The three schools in Birmingham, Huntsville, and Tuscaloosa each may face unique challenges come August, as each campus is in a different region of the state and has a different campus life and mission. To honor each of the campus’ needs, Vickers said the task force will work on defining basic principles instead of a strict, one-size-fits-all plan.

Vickers acknowledged there are many things unknown when talking about the future, because researchers are learning new things about the novel coronavirus each week. What he did believe, though, is that some sort of social distancing will still be necessary until a vaccine is developed.

“It’s an illness that we are still documenting the damage it does, and we still don’t know the long-term impact it’s going to have on the bodies of people who’ve been affected," he said.

When asked about sports, Vickers said he expected colleges across the nation to send a set of recommendations to their athletic conferences about what the institutions and their leaders would be comfortable with. Then, there will have to be discussions about what people attending those events are comfortable with, too.

But, students will cope; they already have been “remarkably resilient,” Vickers said. “I agree that this has been a world turned upside down for both faculty and students who didn’t necessarily plan that most of their curriculum and their experience and their gaining knowledge was going to be though an online mechanism.”

“It’s to think about what’s the safest set of principles that we would follow in order for, to bring people back in some order that we would limit further re-exposure and further emergent of the COVID-19 virus,” Vickers said.

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