Now that students are back to campus for the spring semester, we’re seeing a spike in COVID-19 omicron variant cases. This could lead to the university shutting down parts of campus, including moving classes online, like many other schools have done.

Syracuse University should not make these decisions simply based on the raw number of cases on campus because it misses other important variables, like the fact that SU students were required to receive a COVID-19 booster before returning to campus. It’s also important to note that COVID-19 symptoms for vaccinated people are much typically less severe than for the unvaccinated.

A research study from the state of Massachusetts found that 97% of COVID-19 cases in vaccinated individuals don’t result in severe illness. Since the omicron variant is less severe for many people, there just simply isn’t much of a danger from COVID-19 to the vast majority of students.

This isn’t to make blanket statements and say that students aren’t susceptible to the virus, because there are some students on campus who are more at risk. For those that are at a higher risk, SU should allow virtual options, should they choose.

However, for the rest who are not at serious risk, why shut down the university? Moving classes online makes it difficult for many students to learn, and it is unjust to make students who have already paid their dues for the semester forced to be moved to an inferior form of learning.

Ashish K. Jha, a dean at Brown University and former Harvard University health expert, recently spoke up on how he believes that a surge in the pure number of COVID-19 cases should no longer be a major metric of the pandemic. This is based on the fact that vaccinated people with COVID-19 as a whole report milder symptoms than the unvaccinated.

The way Jha frames it, the prior variants had higher case rates that led to heightened hospitalizations which led to deaths. The omicron variant, however, changes that — because of the large population of vaccinated people, high case rates no longer leads to high hospitalization and death rates. Jha argues that we should focus on hospitalizations and deaths instead of just pure cases.

SU administration should adopt this mentality. The university is full of students who are vaccinated and boosted, and many aren’t in high-risk groups. Severity of cases should be paid attention to, not just pure case rates.

Now, of course if severe cases climb through the roof, with students, faculty and staff hospitalized at alarming rates, then we can take a step back and reconsider what to do with this semester. As it stands now, however, bringing classes online in the face of what are majority mild cases is an overreaction and the wrong decision. Making students return to online learning is a disservice to all who came back to campus this spring in hopes of having a relatively normal semester.

We’ve been in a long battle against the pandemic for almost two years now. It hasn’t been easy for any of us. I’m not saying that we ignore the pandemic and its dangers, but circumstances change. We aren’t in the same spot we were in March 2020. We have a way to fight this virus — the vaccine works and can help us win this battle. With the combination of the vaccine and the omicron variant, it’s time we start to get back to normal as best we can.

John Hepp is a freshman sports analytics major. His column appears biweekly. He can be reached at jwhepp@syr.edu.

Published on January 30, 2022 at 10:15 pm