To whom it may concern, 

We are writing this petition to express our serious concern over Reed’s recent decision to maintain in-person classes. Given the current circumstances and our personal experiences with how COVID-19 spread in China just two months ago, we urge Reed's task force to reconsider their decision and opt for online teaching for the following reasons:

 

1. The close proximity of recent confirmed cases to our Reed community. As of today, there has been one confirmed case of COVID-19 in Multnomah County, which is the county Reed resides in. Another confirmed case has also been found at OHSU, which is also in close proximity to our community. Both of these cases have unknown source, indicating that there is an ongoing community transmission in these communities. 

We know that the task force is more concerned with whether there is an immediate case in the Reed community, however we urge you to rethink your scope of measurement and reconsider the following factors: 

a) Reed is not a closed campus and we do not have an accurate measure or knowledge of who enters Reed campus or whether they are potential carriers of the virus; 

b) many of Reed's faculty and staff live rather far away from campus and Reed cannot be sure whether they are exposed to potential carriers on their commute. 

c) With spring break coming up in 2 weeks, we can only expect community members to be exposed to more potential carriers, as many of them could be planning to go back home or even travel overseas to compromised areas. We also have a large number of students from Washington state, where 267 cases are confirmed so far. I urge Reed to at least advise against unnecessary travels for community members during spring break. 

d) We should also reiterate that COVID-19 spreads easily through person-to-person contact. People can get affected as long as 1) they are in close contact with one another (within about 6 feet); 2) through respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs or sneezes.

In short, given the radius of community members' commute, we urge Reed to reconsider what counts as "within our community", instead of using Reed's campus as an arbitrary boundary of evaluation. 

 

2. The validity of current official numbers given by OHA and CDC. As of today, the reported confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the state of Oregon is 15, however we strongly suggest that Reed does not take this number as an accurate or realistic indicator of the situation for the following reasons. 

a) The lack of, and inaccessibility to testing kits. As Oregon health officials have stated, the CDC still holds a rather arbitrary and ineffective standard for who can be tested for the virus and there are still substantial potential cases that have not been tested. The lack of testing kits, people's fear of medical costs, and CDC's standard for who can access those kits, indicates the lack of validity of current numbers to reflect the real magnitude of COVID-19 in Oregon. 

b) The prolonged incubation period of COVID-19 and its diverse onset among different people. As proven by cases in China and health officials across the world, COVID-19 has an incubation period of up to three weeks, and people could be contagious carriers of the virus without showing symptoms during the aforementioned incubation period. As a result, given the proximity of recently confirmed cases to our campus, Reed cannot be sure at this point that there are no potential carriers of COVID-19 on campus. And we should stress again that potential carriers of COVID-19 can be asymptomatic yet highly contagious to others. Waiting for a confirmed case on campus is only going to expose our community members to higher risks. 

 

3. The increasing number of health-compromised community members on campus. To our knowledge, more and more students and faculty are developing symptoms of the common cold or flu as flu season is in effect, and we cannot stress enough how being compromised by the cold or flu can make individuals more prone to COVID-19. Reed should also note that some older and immune-compromised faculty and staff are within the high risk population suggested by CDC. 

 

4. Finally, the precautions taken by other institutions with (frankly) less state cases. A number of colleges and universities have shifted to online teaching this week. We know that Oregon does not currently have as many cases as states of New York or California, however, we think it is worth noting that schools that are in states with less confirmed cases like OSU (currently 3 confirmed cases in Ohio) are already shifting towards remote teaching in order to promote social distancing between individuals. We know that Reed might think our small campus and student population would make us less prone to COVID-19, we should reiterate and stress our point about the radius of commute for each community member at Reed. In addition, other small LACs such as Smith College where no cases are confirmed within their proximity have shifted to remote teaching. 

We have attached a list of college institutions that have already shifted to remote teaching at the end of this petition. 

We should also stress that “The universities took these actions even though there have been no reported cases of students testing positive to the virus. The only known case of anyone on a campus testing positive is a faculty member in the Stanford School of Medicine.” according to an article from Edsource. 

 

Last but not least, in addition to switching to online-teaching, there are other precautions I urge Reed to take under current circumstances. 

a) Postponing weekly student balls held at Student Union and similar unnecessary community events should be postponed, since such events often take place in a confined air-tight space where individuals are forced to be in close proximity to each other, essentially creating an incubator for the virus.  

b) Reed should also consider other measures such as adding grab and go sections, or pre-preparing food with individual packagings in commons, and urging students to dine outside during lunch and dinner time to avoid mass gathering within buildings.
 

With Regards,

Concerned Student Petitioners 

 

****List of institutions that have suspended in-person classes****

Many schools in the US have decided to move all their classes online and some of them even closed all the student dormitories. More universities are joining the list:

1. University of Washington (UW) - All 3 campuses

2. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

3. Harvard University

4. University of California, San Diego

5. University of California, Irvine

6. University of Southern California (USC)

7. San Jose State University

8. University of California, Berkeley

9. Stanford University

10. Cornell University

11. Case Western Reserve University

12. Columbia University

13. New York University (NYU)

14. Ohio State University

15. Smith College

16. Bucknell University

17. AAU

18. Bryant University

19. American University (AU)

20. Purdue University

21. UIC

22. John Hopkins University

23. Rutgers University

24. Indiana University - Bloomington

25. University of California, Santa Cruz

26. SBU

27. Grinnell College

28. Syracuse University

29. Middlebury College

30. MU

31. Yeshiva University

32. Fordham University

33. Princeton University

34. Dickinson College

35. University of California, Santa Barbara

36. Vanderbilt University

37. Amherst College

38. Seattle University

39. Davidson College

40. Mount Holyoke College

41. Duke University

42. University of California, Los Angeles

43. Barnard College

44. Hofstra University

(all washington state)

45. Seattle Pacific University

46. Cascadia College

47. DigiPen Institute of Technology

48. Green River College

49. Renton Technical College

50. Seattle Central College

(more california)

51. University of San Francisco School of Law (UCSF)

52. San Francisco State University

53. Santa Clara University

54. Palo Alto University

(also washington state)

55. Northeastern University Seattle Campus

56. Bellevue College

57. Bellingham Technical College

58. Everett Community College

59. Lake Washington Institute of Technology

60. Pacific Lutheran University

61. University of Puget Sound

62. Washington State University Everett

63. Skidmore College

64. St. John’s University

65. The New School

66. Touro College

67. Monmouth University

68. Rowan University

69. Stevens Institute of Technology

70. Sacred Heart University 

71. University of New Haven

72. Rice University

73. University of Florida

74. University of Maryland Baltimore County

75. Loyola University of Maryland

76. Stevenson University 

77. Towson University

78. Grinnell College 

79. Midland University of Nebraska.

80. California State University, East Bay

81. Mission College in Santa Clara

82. The Academy of Art University

83. Western Washington University

84. Northern Seattle College

85. South Seattle College

86. Seattle Central College

87. Iona College

88. The Julliard School

89. John Jay College

90. Pace University

91. Kean University

 

(Community colleges)

92. San Jose City College

93. Evergreen Valley College

94. City College of San Francisco

95. Shoreline Community College

96. Skagit Valley College

97. Nassau County Community College

 

***also here are our sources for fact-checking 

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisettevoytko/2020/03/10/at-least-45-colleges-have-cancelled-in-person-classes-so-far-over-coronavirus-fears/#433cfad34673
https://www.seattletimes.com/education-lab/is-my-school-closed-today-heres-a-list-of-coronavirus-related-k-12-and-college-closures-in-washington-state/
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/09/us/coronavirus-university-college-classes/index.html
https://edsource.org/2020/colleges-in-california-and-across-the-country-move-to-online-instruction-in-response-to-coronavirus/625099
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/03/10/roundup-coronavirus-news-mon-march-9
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/coronavirus-closures-here-are-the-schools-closed/2317622/
https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/oakland-school-closes-over-potential-coronavirus-exposure/2248347/
https://www.king5.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/coronavirus-school-closures/281-97cf6ffe-c0aa-47b8-bd6c-3da7ed60d924