As colleges re-open, students test positive for Covid?here's what Yale and UCLA experts say can be learned

Here's what these cases can teach us about what steps can be taken to stem the spread of the virus on college campuses: On August 17, UNC announced that the school's Chapel Hill campus would be canceling in-person undergraduate classes and shifting them entirely to remote learning — just one week after 5,800 students moved into the dorms and thousands more moved back to Chapel Hill to take in-person classes. According to the university's dashboard of coronavirus statistics, the school has confirmed 222 cases of the virus since August 3 from 1,287 tests — a positivity rate of roughly 17.3%.Forman stresses that these kinds of dashboards that provide the public with up-to-date information are "incredibly important.""First of all, they can help other schools understand what to look out for and to learn from those experiences," he says. Less than an hour after the University of Notre Dame announcement, Michigan State University said it was pivoting to an online-only fall for undergrads before they arrive on campus, telling students who planned to live in dorms to stay home.In a letter to students, Michigan State president Dr. Samuel Stanley wrote that "Given the current status of the virus in our country — particularly what we are seeing at other institutions as they re-populate their campus communities — it has become evident to me that, despite our best efforts and strong planning, it is unlikely we can prevent widespread transmission of Covid-19 between students if our undergraduates return to campus."Perhaps the most important lesson that can be learned from the past several weeks is that schools that have the resources to conduct extensive monitoring and testing of students will fare the best in the months ahead. For instance, Harvard University has said that the school will test on-campus students every three days.