Covid Credit
Emory University, exemplary public-health bulwark, can rightfully take credit for bold measures that saved untold lives at great expense, reflecting good intentions without undue empirical constraints
Among the many bold measures taken by Emory University to combat Covid-19, one stands out as especially heroic: shutting off hallway water fountains. Striving for maximum virus suppression, administrators decided to suppress the need for evidence. Waiting for research might have risked countless lives. Taking time to compare costs and benefits might have spread panic along with the virus. In the midst of a pandemic, an institution could not afford such pre-Covid luxuries. Like many peers, Emory officials adopted a new approach. Not that they vaunted their courage and innovation. Asked to clarify the rationale behind the policy, Environmental Compliance Officer Scott Thomaston modestly kept silent, perhaps to avoid claiming credit. He and his colleagues struck a fine balance. Accommodating the thirsty, they did permit public drinking from bottles, which required the removal of masks, for example in classrooms, to enable a furtive suck or two. But since that ritual gave the virus no chance to escape, it was much safer than using water fountains—transmission central.
Other bold steps strengthened the cordon sanitaire that turned the Emory campus into a public-health bulwark. Who can forget the Plexiglas partitions that shielded freshman students from potential viral emitters teaching their in-person classes in fall 2020? Those impermeable barriers prevented contagious droplets from going down their destructive path and discouraged sneaky moves over or around the fearsome divide. No faculty complained about the plastic cage: it served the greater good. So did social policy in dormitories at the time: only four (or was it five?) continually-tested students were allowed to gather in one space—one more, and Covid would wreak havoc. Reports suggested that enforcement may have been spotty, but the spirit of prevention at all costs nonetheless prevailed. That was also evident in the isolation policy, applied to a student in one of my classes: since she might have been exposed to another person who had tested positive, she was confined to an Emory hotel room for ten days. Gracefully accepting the unusual hospitality extended to her, she had ample time to catch up on homework while contemplating her contribution to humanity.
Of course, Emory masked up early. In another bold step, well in advance of any evidence of any outside virus transmission anywhere in the world, Emory for some time required face-coverings outside, even as staff trudged from parking lots without meeting a soul. “Save a Life. Wear a Mask,” said signs posted around campus, instilling a sense of virtuousness between hard-drawn breaths on lonely walks. As Emory College resumed full operations in 2021, masks stayed on in classrooms. Not a single case of transmission had yet been registered there, but, since correlation seemed to prove causation, there was no point in taking a chance on change. The policy came with accommodations. Instructors who wished their mouths to be seen as they spoke to students could opt for convenient transparent plastic coverings with foam edges that allowed ample airflow on the side, which presumably had been tested to prove that Covid did not spread laterally. As the main physical education center reopened for regular use, it also kept mask restrictions in place, thus promoting the efficiency of exercise by increasing the challenge of catching one’s breath. Some exceptions applied. Perhaps on the basis of a modeling exercise not shared with the community, varsity athletes could go unmasked during games and coaches could take theirs off when talking directly to players, though spectators mere feet away had to stay covered at all times—a creative layered strategy that holds lessons for future virus containment. When Emory leaders ditched the indoor mask requirement in March 2022, numerous faculty accustomed to a two-year abundance of caution protested the premature gamble, insisting instead on continued vigilance. But on the very day they expressed their anxieties to colleagues, the CDC down the street blindsided them by lifting its mask mandate. Fortunately, nothing untoward happened the rest of that spring semester, which passed so normally that none of the fearful objectors remembered to reassess their dire expectations. To general relief, uncomfortable questions did not arise and bygones soon were bygones.
That was true of the institution as a whole. Here and there, to be sure, a question or two did arise. For example, in spite of Emory’s best efforts, many hundreds, if not thousands, of undergraduate students got infected with Covid since 2020, yet none were hospitalized or died; could we say, then, that campus policy and ample spending (over 125 million dollars, by one estimate)—or similar efforts elsewhere—made any difference at all in stopping transmission or protecting student health? In view of the continued spread of the virus and its minimal effect on students, did the vaccination mandate, in particular, benefit healthy young adults? Since Emory’s various data “dashboards” on Covid trends and institutional steps had reported only descriptive but no inferential statistics, what evidence did Emory collect to link measures with outcomes? As the negative effects of Covid restrictions, for example on student mental health, become clearer, how do the costs and benefits of Emory policy look in retrospect? Early on, questions in this vein drew rebukes from some faculty who thought that, in its cold pre-Covid rationality, raising them might suggest that one did not care about human life. Avoiding that mistake, the Emory administration has wisely refrained from issuing a thorough public debriefing that might appear cold-hearted. Post-Covid, a full accounting would seem superfluous, if not counterproductive. Why look back? After all, nobody died, right? QED.
But perhaps Emory should look back, if only to take proper credit for its new policy approach. Covid proved liberating. It liberated Emory—as it did many other institutions, states, and the federal government—from having to give a precise account of what it achieved with the millions spent and the restrictions imposed. In the fight against Covid, it can proudly assert, no expense was too great, no right sacred, no data decisive. Pre-Covid, an institutional ethic of responsibility might have insisted on leading with evidence or comparing costs and benefits. Post-Covid, an ethic of conviction or Gesinnungsethik took over—the conviction that water fountains kill, quarantining the healthy works, masks save lives, vaccines stop the spread, a safe campus flattens curves, and, above all, that acting on good intentions is therapeutic in itself. Besides an aura of protection, Emory policy produced the frisson of virtue. That was priceless.