When 
bringing 
their 

concerns 
to 
Schlissel, 
the 

faculty members noted the 
metric regarding more than 70 
new cases per million in the 
county had been met. 

According to data published 

on MI Safe Start Map, daily 
new cases per million were 
above 70 in Washtenaw County 
around a dozen times during 
the last weeks of September. 
After that point, the daily new 
cases per million fell below the 
threshold. 

The University posted the 

metrics 
online 
Wednesday. 

Schlissel 
had 
previously 

declined to name a specific 
threshold such as a certain 
number of cases that would 
require the campus to close 
again.

Information 
Professor 

Kentaro 
Toyama, 
who 
has 

been vocal in his criticism of 
Schlissel, wrote in his email to 
the president that the metrics 
were not stringent enough.

“Many 
of 
us 
believe, 

incidentally, 
that 
these 

response metrics are lenient 
-- they are weaker than the 
standards at other universities,” 
Toyama wrote. “The language 
on the website calls these 
‘situations that might provoke 
changes in our campus plans,’ 
which unfortunately commits 
to no action, and is logically 
equivalent to this summer’s 
propaganda.”

When 
a 
threshold 
is 

breached, the University begins 
a review of campus operations 
to consider what response is 
needed.

In an email to The Daily 

Friday 
night, 
University 

spokesperson Rick Fitzgerald 
said Schlissel was in discussions 
with public health experts and 
advisers about the next steps.

“He was confirming what 

had been noted in the email, 
that in Washtenaw County 
there are more than 70 new 
cases per million,” Fitzgerald 
wrote. “As he indicated, the 
Campus 
Health 
Response 

Committee 
is 
carefully 

considering the situation. It is 
important to note that, as the 
president said, ‘there are many 
options for interventions that 
must be tailored to the exact 
circumstances.’”

Other triggers include an 

inability to conduct prompt 
case investigation and contact 
tracing or limited bed capacity 
or 
personal 
protective 

equipment 
at 
Michigan 

Medicine. Additional metrics 
are five days of test positivity 
rates above 20% from on and 
off-campus 
testing 
or 
five 

days of sustained increases 
in infections among students, 
staff or faculty, which would 
be determined in coordination 
with the Washtenaw County 
Health Department.

Possible mitigation strategies 

range from restricting travel 
on-campus students to pausing 
in-person classes for two weeks 
or even pivoting to fully online 
classes for the remainder of 
the semester. More extreme 
options could include a shelter-
in-place 
order 
issued 
in 

coordination with local public 
health 
officials 
or 
closing 

residence halls. However, the 
guidelines note that the latter 
measure “must be evaluated 
and undertaken with care due 
to the risk of seeding infections 
from the student population 
into other communities.” 

Public health experts have 

also noted the potential danger 

of sending students back home 
from a campus that has become 
a COVID-19 hotspot.

On 
Tuesday, 
University 

Housing identified clusters of 
COVID-19 cases at Mosher-
Jordan Residence Hall and 
Alice Lloyd Residence Hall. 
Earlier in September, a cluster 
was reported at South Quad 
Residence Hall.

At the start of the pandemic 

last spring, students in dorms 
faced 
uncertainty 
about 

whether or not they would be 
forced to return home or if 
they could stay on campus. The 
University eventually offered a 
$1,200 refund to students who 
left the residence halls. 

In an interview with The 

Daily Thursday, Schlissel said 
he does not anticipate needing 
to send students home in the 
near future. 

“I very much doubt that the 

pandemic will get bad enough 
that we literally have to send 
everybody 
home,” 
Schlissel 

said. “I think there’s a long way 
between 
sending 
everybody 

home and where we are now 
where 
we 
can 
scale 
back 

prudently, and really truly limit 
things to things that can only 
happen face-to-face.”

In a video posted with the 

criteria on Wednesday, Preeti 
Malani, chief health officer at 
the University, said the metrics 
were based on those currently 
in use at the state and local level, 
as well as national guidelines.

“There is no one single 

number 
or 
single 
piece 
of 

information that will prompt 
an immediate change,” Malani 
said. “... These response metrics 
are meant to prompt a broader 
review by public health and 
medical experts.”

According to the University’s 

COVID-19 
dashboard, 
there 

have been 555 cases on campus 
since Aug. 30, the day before 
fall classes started. As of Friday 
night, 2,571 tests have been 
conducted this week, with a 
1.5% positivity rate.

In a press release Friday, 

Jimena Loveluck, health officer 
for Washtenaw County, noted 
that young people accounted for 
the majority of cases.

“We are currently seeing a 

sharp increase in cases among 
local, college-age individuals,” 
Loveluck said in a statement. 
“We know social gatherings 
without 
precautions 
are 
a 

primary source of exposure. We 
can prevent additional spread 

by 
keeping 
all 
gatherings 

small, using face coverings and 
distance, and fully cooperating 
with case investigators and 
contact tracers.”

County 
data 
showed 
a 

“significant increase” in the 
proportion 
of 
cases 
among 

people between 18 and 22 
years old, who made up 78% of 
reported cases from Sept. 17 to 
Sept. 30.

Aspects of the University’s 

reopening plan have been met 
with pushback from public 
health 
professionals. 
Julia 

Marcus, an infectious disease 
epidemiologist and professor at 
Harvard Medical School, called 
Schlissel’s 
approach 
one 
of 

“false reassurance,” referencing 
the lack of widespread testing.

Schlissel also acknowledged 

the increases in cases over 
recent weeks on Thursday.

“I 
am 
very 
concerned,” 

Schlissel said. “I think we’re 
holding our own, but things 
are not heading in the right 
direction now.”

Daily Staff Reporter Dominick 

Sokotoff contributed reporting.

Managing News Editors Leah 

Graham and Sayali Amin can be 
reached at leahgra@umich.edu 
and sayalia@umich.edu. 

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Wednesday, October 7, 2020 — 3

METRIC
From Page 1

In an interview with the 

Daily, University of Michigan 
President Mark Schlissel said 
that he had instructed UHS 
to ease up restrictions on who 
could receive a test, in order 
to encourage students to get 
tested.

“We’re telling (UHS) to ease 

up because we want students to 
use UHS,” Schlissel said. “It’s 
free, it’s convenient, there’s a 
one-day turnaround time, and 
we can work with students 
immediately when they get a 
positive result to help assure 
their health and to make sure 
it doesn’t spread to others, so 
we’re going to have the UHS 
folks be a little more relaxed … 
You know, we want to test you.”

The 
University 
has 
said 

it would test approximately 
3,000 asymptomatic students 
a week through a voluntary 
surveillance testing program, 
with 
plans 
to 
ramp 
up 

capacity to 6,000 tests per 
week beginning in October. 
According to the University’s 
COVID-19 
website, 
more 

than 3,100 students combined 
have been tested through the 
surveillance program in the 
last four weeks. 

After 
concerns 
regarding 

the accuracy of the school’s 

COVID-19 
dashboard, 
the 

University incorporated off-
campus positive results, more 
than doubling the cumulative 
case count since the start of the 
school year. 

Susan 
Ringler-Cerniglia, 

Washtenaw 
County 
health 

department 
communications 

administrator, said the county 
only receives the number of 
positive results, leaving the 
total number of off-campus 
tests conducted unknown.

The 
county’s 
health 

department 
has 
a 
legal 

agreement with the University 
to alert the school of all 
University-related cases. To 
check if a positive case is tied 
to the University, Ringler-
Cerniglia 
said 
the 
health 

department looks to see if 
the case is connected to an 
on-campus address or an out-
of-state address. Both of these 
are usually good indicators 
that the person who tested 
positive was a student.

“Is it absolutely, 100 percent 

foolproof? 
No,” 
Ringler-

Cerniglia 
said. 
“But 
our 

experiences over the years, it 
works pretty well at figuring 
out when those positive test 
results come up.”

Students who get tested off-

campus are supposed to report 
both their positive or negative 
results to the University on the 
UHS website. But LSA junior 

Sophie Gibson, who got tested 
at Eastern Michigan University, 
said she was unaware she had 
to share her result. 

“I was told there was a rapid 

test for free at EMU,” Gibson 
said. “I did not report my 
results. I don’t really know how 
to do that.”

Ringler-Cerniglia said the 

health department has seen 
an influx of rapid antigen 
tests recently. She expressed 
concern about this trend, as 
rapid tests have high rates of 
false negatives.

Urgent care centers and 

other 
off-campus 
testing 

centers are not required to 
report their case counts or 
any other information to the 
University. 
Representatives 

from 
urgent 
care 
centers 

Michigan Urgent Care and 
Prognify told The Daily they 
do not track whether patients 
are students, meaning they 
cannot provide the University 
with information about the 
student test results. Instead, 
local urgent cares are required 
to report positive cases to the 
Washtenaw 
County 
Health 

Department, which according 
to Schlissel, works “hand in 
glove” with the University.

“So they send us those 

results, we collaborate, and 
then we do the investigation, 
case 
tracking, 
we 
provide 

quarantine,” Schlissel said. “So 

all that it does when you get a 
positive test off campus, is it 
slows down by at least a day, 
how quickly we can intervene 
to try to keep a positive case 
from 
spreading 
amongst 

friends or contacts so it’s not a 
great strategy.”

A representative from Ann 

Arbor Urgent Care told The 
Daily they charge $150 for 
a COVID-19 test to students 
without 
health 
insurance. 

The cost can pose a barrier to 
students who do not qualify for 
UHS testing.

In 
a 
Sept. 
25 
email, 

University 
President 
Mark 

Schlissel 
said 
he 
wanted 

to 
“emphasize 
again 
the 

importance of students being 
tested at UHS, especially in 
light of the numbers of positive 
cases 
that 
we 
are 
seeing 

identified 
by 
off-campus 

testing.”

As of Sunday night, the 

Maize and Blueprint COVID-19 
dashboard showed more than 
600 cases since the week of 
Aug. 30. The University has also 
confirmed COVID-19 clusters 
in South Quad, Mosher-Jordan 
and Alice Lloyd Residences 
Halls. Additionally, on Friday 
Washtenaw County exceeded 
the number of cases needed for 
administrators to reevaluate 
on-campus operations.

After coming in contact 

with a friend whose roommate 

had 
tested 
positive, 
LSA 

junior Jordan Wank wanted 
to get tested for COVID-19 
immediately. He said he opted 
for UHS because he thought 
the result would come back 
faster. 

“(It was) very easy,” Wank 

said. “I was handed a sticker 
and then I gave it to a doctor 
and they tested me and then I 
left. It was 36 hours from the 
time I contacted them to when 
I received my results.”

Getachew 
said 
she 
was 

pleasantly surprised by the 
quick 
turnaround 
of 
UHS 

testing, but still has complaints 
about the University’s overall 
testing situation. 

“I do still believe that the 

school is doing a lot of under-
testing, and I don’t believe I 
should lie if I’ve been exposed 
to someone in order to get a 
test,” Getachew said. “So I 
think my frustration is still 
very real with the fact that it’s 
not as easy to get a test from 
the school, and my first option 
was to go to urgent care.”

Some public health experts 

have 
been 
critical 
of 
the 

University’s plans for testing, 
saying it is not expansive 
enough to keep the virus in 
check.

Ransom 
said 
she 

understands that off-campus 
tests 
may 
seem 
appealing 

because students can just walk 

in. However, Ransom said it 
is either less reliable or takes 
longer than in-house tests at 
UHS.

“Outside testing facilities 

are either using an unreliable 
rapid test that then has to have 
a confirmatory PCR (nasal 
swab) test, or they’re using 
PCR tests through the state 
of Michigan, which is three 
to five days until you get your 
result,” Ransom said.

Ransom said because UHS 

uses Michigan Medicine as 
its lab site, most students 
get results in 24 hours. She 
encouraged students to test at 
UHS if they can and stressed 
that a UHS test does not 
require students to quarantine 
on North Campus. 

She added that a negative test 

does not remove the burden of 
quarantining for 14 days.

“Students who have a high-

risk exposure will need to 
quarantine for 14 days, even 
if they have a negative test 
result,” Ransom said. “So the 
test result being negative does 
not free them from quarantine 
early. We want to make sure 
that everyone here on campus 
is safe, and so doing your part to 
kind of minimize risk to other 
students is really important.”

Daily Staff Reporters Dominic 

Coletti and Jenna Siteman can 
be reached at dcoletti@umich.
edu and jsiteman@umich.edu.

TESTING
From Page 1

The first couple of weeks of 

the semester went spectacularly 
well, the number of cases was 
exceedingly low, the pre-arrival 
screening for people in the 
residence halls (tested) 6000 
people, we were able to identify 
22 positive cases, a very low 
rate but those folks came to 
school later. So the year got off 
to an outstanding start. The last 
couple of weeks have been very 
difficult, and the number of cases 
have grown significantly. I don’t 
know whether it’s confidence, or 
misguided ideas, but more and 
more testing of students is being 
done off campus at local testing 
facilities, perhaps with the idea 
of not wanting the University 
to find out if somebody has the 
virus which, regardless of other 
thoughts is not a very good 
strategy amongst students. But 
things have gotten significantly 
more challenging the last two to 
two and a half weeks, probably 
part of it as things are getting 
colder, a little bit more socializing 
moving indoors. Another part is 
probably people getting tired of 
having to constrain the way they 
want to interact, so we’re sort of 
letting our guard down a little 
bit. 

… Everyone should realize 

that COVID-19 is a reportable 
disease so that means the law 
says that any testing facility has 
to report all positive results to 
the relevant county and state 
health department — it’s the law. 
So what happens when someone 
gets tested off-campus, if they’re 
positive, the result goes to the 

county health department, and 
we work hand in glove with 
the Washtenaw County Health 
Department. 
We 
meet 
with 

them on a daily basis, we’re 
working together trying to deal 
with some outbreaks in town 
amongst Michigan students. So 
they send us those results, we 
collaborate, and then we do the 
investigation, case tracking, we 
provide quarantine. So all that it 
does when you get a positive test 
off campus, is it slows down by at 
least a day, how quickly we can 
intervene to try to keep a positive 
case from spreading amongst 
friends or contacts so it’s not a 
great strategy.

I do understand, though, that 

people have complained to me. 
For example, that one reason 
they’ll get tested off campus is 
the University Health Service 
won’t test them, or they’ll say, 
‘Look, I’ve had a close contact,’ 
and the health service talks to 
them a little, and it really isn’t a 
close contact, it’s a casual contact 
and health service was saying 
‘Look, you know we have to put 
our resources where the to close 
public health contacts are.’ But 
we’re telling (UHS) to ease up 
because we want students to use 
UHS. It’s free, it’s convenient, 
there’s a one-day turnaround 
time, and we can work with 
students immediately when they 
get a positive result to help assure 
their health and to make sure it 
doesn’t spread to others, so we’re 
going to have the UHS folks 
be a little more relaxed … You 
know, we want to test you. We’re 
ramping up our testing capacity, 
this coming week on Monday we 
switched to a saliva test … And 
that’s really in response to the 

community saying, ‘We don’t feel 
safe because we don’t feel there’s 
enough testing.’ Up to now, 
we’ve been using testing to do 
a statistical surveillance of the 
campus so we can act on areas 
where the rates are increasing. 
But I do think it’s important to 
recognize that people’s sense 
of safety and well-being is very 
important, and if we can improve 
that by expanding testing and 
maybe even making it mandatory 
for people in dormitories –– 
we’re discussing that now –– it 
would reassure a lot of people, 
and help us better deal with the 
pandemic collectively.

TMD: So, given the sharp 

uptick in student COVID-19 
cases over the last few weeks, are 
you still more confident than not, 
that students will be responsible 
and that we’ll make it through 
the fall semester in person?

MS: 
You 
know, 
it’s 
an 

extremely 
difficult 
question, 

and I am very concerned. I think 
we’re holding our own, but things 
are not heading in the right 
direction now. It’s not an “all-
or-none” kind of thing. In other 
words, when infections increase, 
the only option isn’t to send 
everybody home. There are lots 
of options short of that … What 
we do when there’s a case, or a 
cluster of cases, is we investigate 
them and we ask whether they’re 
spreading 
throughout 
the 

community, or whether they’re 
limited to a group of students, 
usually people that are socially 
interacting with each other. 
One of the places we’re running 
into trouble in the last couple of 
weeks is in the fraternities and 
sororities in town, both affiliated 
and some of the disaffiliated 

fraternities, where we haven’t 
gotten uniformly the level of 
cooperation 
that’s 
necessary 

to be able to investigate cases 
and try to protect people and 
prevent it from spreading. So 
that’s something we’re working 
very closely with the health 
department on, on literally an 
every single day basis.

TMD: 
The 
Graduate 

Employees’ Organization went 
on strike earlier this month. 
Among GEO’s demands was the 
universal right to work remotely. 
The University has extended 
that right to faculty, but even 
in the final offer made to GEO, 
the University did not offer that 
right to graduate employees. 
In communications to both the 
graduate employees and the 
student body at large, other 
demands have been addressed, 
but there has not been a clear 
explanation of why that right 
cannot be given to graduate 
employees. Why is that?

MS: Faculty do not have a 

universal right to decide whether 
they want to work in person or 
remotely. That may be something 
that you’ve been told, but that’s 
actually not true. The Graduate 
Student Instructors are actually 
treated the same as faculty in this 
regard. We try to accommodate 
every single person’s sense of 
health and safety, preexisting 
or predisposing conditions, etc. 
And at the end, it’s very difficult 
to identify people that are willing 
to say they feel forced to teach 
in person … So as part of the 
resolution of the strike, we came 
up with a mechanism where any 
GSI who feels uncomfortable or 
unsafe in the class and doesn’t 
have their question immediately 

resolved, can step away and 
teach 
remotely 
while 
we 

investigate the situation and try 
to fix the problem … We have no 
interest in being anything other 
than collaborative with our own 
students. 

Now what pushed us to, 

you know, go the route of an 
injunction and try to get some 
help, is I was very concerned that 
the integrity of the Michigan 
undergraduate curriculum was 
being threatened … when classes 
are getting canceled for a couple 
of weeks, and education of other 
people is being interfered with, 
why would someone want to 
come and be an undergraduate 
at the University of Michigan 
if I couldn’t assure that they’d 
actually get to take the classes 
they signed up for? And if it kept 
going on for weeks and weeks, 
what would happen to your 
semester? We would give you 
all incompletes. That’s it, you 
paid for it, but you’re not going 
to get any credit. So we had to 
come up with a way to help the 
GEO feel safe and be safe in the 
classroom and deal with their 
concerns around their academic 
progress as students in order 
to 
keep 
the 
undergraduate 

curriculum going. We had an 
agreement the very first week, 
and the leadership took it back to 
the members and the members 
voted it down. So we were very 
concerned that we weren’t going 
to be able to reach an agreement. 
And all the while, you know, of 
course we were continuing to pay 
our graduate students. We never 
stopped paying them, we never 
stopped covering their tuition, 
we never threatened anyone 
individually. The injunction was 

aimed at the union as opposed 
to individuals. We were going to 
sue the union if they didn’t live 
up to their word to go back to 
work.

TMD: In their demands, 

GEO included disarming DPSS 
and reallocating around 50 
percent of its funding. Why 
did the University not really 
address GEO’s concerns over 
policing in the offers extended 
to them beyond the creation of 
a review commission, and has 
the strike made you reconsider 
policing on campus?

MS: I think what’s made 

us think hard about policing 
on campus is what’s been 
happening in the United States 
and, you know, not just the 
last few months but certainly 
the last few months, but in 
recent 
years, 
the 
greater 

and greater appreciation of 
disproportionate policing. The 
killing by police of unarmed 
people and very prominently 
Black people in recent months. 
The fear and anxiety that many 
people have simply seeing a 
police officer, all those things, 
lead us to the conclusion that, 
not only do we have to look 
at policing more broadly in 
society, but we have to make 
sure that we’re doing it right 
here at the University. So, 
I have nothing but respect 
and gratitude to the GEOs 
for bringing this up, but it’s 
not just a GEO issue. It’s an 
undergraduate student issue, 
it’s a schools and colleges issue, 
it’s a city of Ann Arbor issue. 

SCHLISSEL
From Page 1

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