Two months after returning to college campuses, anxiety gave way to relief. Smiles hide behind the masks of professors and students. The fourth wave of COVID-19 spares universities, which remain immune to outbreaks that have disrupted elementary and secondary schools.
Far from being a space for the spread of the virus, campuses are a safer place than the rest of society, says Pierre Cossette, rector of the University of Sherbrooke (UdeS). The establishment has identified 26 cases of COVID-19 since the start of the school year at the end of August. There was no outbreak. This means that these 26 people were each infected on their own, elsewhere than at the university.
Across Quebec, barely five outbreaks have occurred in universities since the start of the fall semester in attendance. Almost 317,000 students attend the university network. “We are able to manage COVID,” says Pierre Cossette. Our engineers know how to deal with sulfuric acid, they know how to deal with radioactivity, they know how to deal with concrete pieces that risk crushing them, and they know how to deal with COVID. “
We meet the rector around one of the 250 picnic tables installed over the past few months on the establishment’s vast grounds, where 20,000 people converge every day. Dozens of students and staff enjoy their midday meal in the autumn sun. Classes have also been set up outside: the risk of infection is reduced in the open air.
Pierre Cossette is a doctor. If there’s anyone who knows the dangers of COVID-19, it’s him. The rector insists, however: the risks associated with confinement at home are greater than those of returning to campus. This is why, since the fall of 2020, even in the midst of the second and third waves, he has made sure with Public Health that a significant portion of the activities of the University of Sherbrooke take place in the presence.
“I want to be clear: we are not in negationism [de la COVID]. Our priority is safety. But my joke that I say all the time is that for a 24-year-old man, major depression, on average, is much more serious than COVID. A major depression takes longer and there is a real risk of mortality associated with that, ”says Pierre Cossette.
The effect of vaccination
He is also president of the Interuniversity Cooperation Bureau (BCI), which brings together the 18 Quebec universities. The echoes it has from its members is that the return to presence, after a year and a half of virtual teaching, is going well everywhere, despite the legitimate anxiety of certain students and certain members of the staff.
“Vaccination has changed the situation,” says Pierre Cossette. It reveals that 91.7% of university students in Quebec are doubly vaccinated. This is not an estimate, but an observation: the Ministry of Higher Education sent the Ministry of Health the contact details of the students registered for the fall session, which were crossed with the data on vaccination.
The vaccination rate of employees is of the same magnitude. At the University of Sherbrooke, 94.1% of staff received their two doses.
For the rest, wearing a mask is mandatory at all times indoors, except for teachers when they are two meters from their students. Officially, the distance is one meter (with mask). But in reality, no one walks around with a tape measure to keep people 32 centimeters away from each other.
The UdeS nevertheless created a “brigade” of students responsible for monitoring health measures. Mélissa Champagne, a special education student, is part of this squad. We meet her at the intersection of three corridors in the Faculty of Education, sitting at a desk with two bottles of disinfectant soap and two boxes of masks. She does not have to play the police: “Just seeing me, people who wear the mask below the nose automatically put it on. It has become a reflex. “
Watch out for the holidays
The great fear associated with returning to campus is student holidays. Some Canadian cities have been the scene of gigantic rallies that have gone wrong. No less than 8,000 students caused mayhem in the middle of the streets in Kingston last week. In Quebec, it seems that student parties are discreet enough not to attract attention …
Alcohol consumption has been regulated in student events, including initiations. There is talk of relaunching the famous 5 to 8 Thursday, explains Yaomie Dupuis, vice-president of the Student Federation of the University of Sherbrooke. Until then, a concert by Fouki and Koriass on Friday arouses passions: the 2,000 tickets have gone out in 30 minutes. Beer tokens are reported to be selling quite well.
“Students need to find each other. The confinement was very difficult for mental health. We have had a lot of testimonies of distress, ”says Yaomie Dupuis. The psychological assistance service of UdeS has opened two additional positions in social work.
“It was time to come back to presence. We are all vaccinated. The next step should be to remove the mask in class, ”says Claudia Beaulieu, a preschool and elementary education student. Discouraged by distance education, she dropped out of school in the middle of the winter semester. A healthy break: she reoriented her studies in orientation towards a field that interests her more.
Angélique Laurent, professor at the Faculty of Education, notes that her students really needed to come back to class. “I attach great importance to the educational link with my students, it’s so much easier in the presence,” she says. She also dreams of the day when she will be able to see the faces of the 35 people sitting in her classroom. But patience is essential these days.