A Boston City Councilor is urging Boston University and Northeastern University to switch to an all-remote fall semester and not encourage their students to return to campus amid the coronavirus pandemic.
City Councilor Kenzie Bok, who represents areas of BU (Fenway) and Northeastern (Mission Hill), in a letter to the presidents for each university notes the recent rise of cases in Massachusetts.
“While the focus of university reopening plans has been on methods of controlling transmission once students are here, the greatest public health risk to Boston at the moment is the sheer influx of individuals from out of state,” Bok wrote on Monday to BU President Robert Brown and Northeastern President Joseph Aoun.
“Each of your institutions draws nearly three-quarters of your undergraduate students from out of state; for the safety of the city, as many of them as possible should stay home,” the District 8 councilor wrote.
No other large city in the U.S. sees its population annually swell more than 10% over two weeks at the end of August and in early September, Bok tweeted.
That population jump in Boston “makes us very vulnerable to another outbreak when students break quarantine,” she added. “It’s like a tidal wave we can see coming a mile off the coast — except we can still knock it down.”
Bok on Twitter thanked Berklee College and Simmons University for “making right call already” with virtual semesters.
“Very hard situation, but must put community health 1st,” she tweeted. “@BU_Tweets & @Northeastern have highest # out-of-state students, but same dynamics hold for all non-commuter colleges bringing many students from outside MA.”
Boston University in a statement said the university is “in close contact with Councilor Bok on testing protocols and public health best practices. We will continue to work with the Councilor and her constituents to prioritize their health and safety along with the health and safety of the entire BU community.”
Northeastern University in a statement said the university has “undertaken countless extraordinary measures to plan for a safe fall semester. This includes launching a large-scale testing program, strict protocols around masking and healthy distancing, and completely reimagined approaches to dining and residential life. We are moving cautiously and carefully ahead with the plans we announced in June.”
