We’re returning to a riskier situation than we had in March

hen the Nebraska State College System began exploring options to safely return to courses in the fall semester, Chancellor Paul Turman assured me that Nebraska’s state colleges wouldn’t return to in person classes if the NSCS didn’t feel it was safe. 

As I reported in May, Turman said that “If (state officials) were to say they rolled things out too early and needed to go back to the original structure from March and April,” the system would decide to return to online delivery.

Here we are in the first week of classes at Chadron State and already it should be clear that state officials “rolled things out too early.” As the pandemic struck in March, Dawes County and CSC didn’t have a single case of COVID-19 and it was deemed too dangerous to attend classes in person. We were told to stay home, wash our hands and eventually, to wear a mask.  

Now in August, Dawes county is much worse off. After surviving for several months with just one or two cases active at a time, as we return to campus, COVID-19 cases have skyrocketed in the county from one active case last week to 24, according to Panhandle Public Health District, Wednesday. Seven of those cases are directly tied to campus, according to CSC. 

It’s clear that COVID-19’s second wave has hit Dawes County harder than its first. Back in March and April we were self-isolating and observing a much more strict Directed Health Measure from Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts. For a time, the county continued to do relatively well once the DHM was relaxed, but it seems dropping our guard has finally caught up to us.

On May 8, the county had its first positive case. On July 1 it counted its third and fourth cumulative cases. July 30 brought that number to eight, and by Aug. 19 the total number of cumulative cases climbed to 38. Dawes County currently has the second highest occurrence of positive cases in the Nebraska Panhandle, second only to Scotts Bluff County, a much more populated area. 

It’s obvious at this point that state officials “rolled things out too early,’ in Nebraska and now Dawes County’s explosion of cases is coming at the worst time possible – right when we’ve all started frequenting campus again. 

For all of their planning over the summer, the NSCS essentially decided to pass the buck to state government and local health districts to make the most important decision the college faces this semester – whether or not students stay on campus. 

Frankly, the numbers make it clear that our situation today is much worse than it was in March or April. It’s time for Ricketts, PPHD, the NSCS and CSC to stop with the “thoughts and prayers”-esque messages about personal responsibility, and start doing something to actually ensure our safety.