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On August 17, UNC announced that the school’s Chapel Hill campus would be canceling in-person undergraduate classes and shifting them entirely to remote learning — just one week after 5,800 students moved into the dorms and thousands more moved back to Chapel Hill to take in-person classes. 

At the time of the decision, school representatives said the rate of students positive for Covid-19 had jumped from 2.8% to 13.6% over the week students were on campus.

“As of this morning, we have tested 954 students and have 177 in isolation and 349 in quarantine, both on and off campus,” UNC-Chapel Hill’s chancellor, Kevin Guskiewicz, and provost, Robert Blouin, said in a statement. At the time, the school indicated it had just four remaining quarantine rooms.

According to the university’s online coronavirus dashboard, these figures have improved slightly in the short time since the announcement. 

Just three days later, the student positivity rate is down to 10.6% and the number of available quarantine rooms is up to 26. 

According to student newspaper The Daily Tar Heel, at least four clusters of infections were traced back to residence halls and a fraternity.

The school has enacted community standards in which students are expected to wear masks, socially distance and avoid large groups, but these clusters indicate that such guidelines are not sufficient in stemming the spread. 

“We do have the expectations that students will maintain their compliance with our community standards whether they’re on campus or off campus, particularly in the town of Chapel Hill,” said Blouin. “But that is something that has been very difficult for us to enforce unless there is an actual citation, or a complaint, that is made with respect to that student.”

Doctor and professor Howard P. Forman, who directs Yale’s Health Care Management program, admits that it can be difficult for schools to enforce these kinds of community rules, especially when students may be getting mixed messages. 

“If you grew up in a family that believes that [coronavirus] is a hoax, these community rules may seem like an excessive use of force by your institution and you’re going to violate them and you’re going to go to those parties. If I’m 19 years old and I want to go out and socialize and somebody says to me, ‘it’s all a hoax.’ Well, I’m going to think it’s a hoax and I’m going to go out,” he says. “This is the consequence of us having inconsistent messaging at the federal, state, local levels.”

Coordinated, crystal-clear messaging from schools, state and federal officials could help reduce these flare-ups caused by students breaking rules against large groups, he argues. 

Dr. Russell Buhr, assistant professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA says there are several additional lessons schools should learn. 

“First, unsanctioned socialization is going to happen no matter what. You can reduce it by enforcing with severe penalties, but even then it will happen,” he says. “Second, we can’t let perfect be the enemy of better. Harm reduction is a very well-established technique in public health promotion that could go a long way here. Third, without the appropriate testing and contact tracing, and without wide-scale adoption and availability of things like face coverings and masks, this will be a lot worse.”