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As the Omicron surge spreads crossed the country, sending Covid-19 lawsuit counts to caller heights and disrupting regular life, immoderate universities are preparing for a caller signifier of the pandemic — 1 that acknowledges that the microorganism is present to enactment and requires a rethinking of however to grip beingness connected campus.

Schools are asking: Should determination inactive beryllium wide testing? Does determination request to beryllium interaction tracing? What astir tracking the fig of cases — and posting them connected field dashboards? And erstwhile determination is simply a spike successful cases, bash classes request to spell remote?

Universities from Northeastern successful Boston to the University of California-Davis person begun to sermon Covid successful “endemic” presumption — a displacement from reacting to each spike of cases arsenic a situation to the world of surviving with it daily. And successful immoderate cases, determination has been backlash.

“I deliberation we’re successful a play of transition, hopefully to an endemic phase,” Martha Pollack, president of Cornell University, said. “I accidental hopefully due to the fact that with this pandemic, we don’t cognize what’s coming next.”

Yet immoderate universities are besides saying that spikes successful cases bash not person to beryllium arsenic disruptive arsenic they were successful the earlier waves of the pandemic. E. Gordon Gee, the president of West Virginia University, said astatine this point, it would beryllium a strategical mistake to marque short-term, reactive decisions, similar closing down classrooms.

“I deliberation determination is simply a unreserved to bash thing immediate, and that benignant of is simply a panic push, which I don’t like,” helium said. “We’ll ne'er spell backmost to wherever we were, those days are done. This is what beingness is about. We person the Omicron, we person the Delta, adjacent twelvemonth erstwhile you and I instrumentality a flu shot, we’re going to instrumentality it with a dose of Covid vaccine.”

Some universities are adjacent loosening what were erstwhile strict rules for quarantining and isolation. Harvard is instituting what it calls an “isolate-in-place policy,” meaning that students who trial affirmative would, with immoderate exceptions, enactment successful their dorm rooms, adjacent with roommates. A schoolhouse email suggests having “a conversation” astir however to grip things if a roommate got sick.

“That’s messy, that’s truly messy,” said Milagros Costabel Bionda, a first-year student. “We besides person shared bathrooms.” Harvard declined to comment.

The University of Wyoming announced precocious that its Covid attack was moving from “containment to management,” abandoning the wide investigating it instituted past year. Last fall, the schoolhouse tested 10,000 radical implicit 4 days, according to Chad Baldwin, subordinate vice president for communications and marketing.

But this semester, helium said, the university’s wellness advisory sheet concluded that Omicron was truthful wide that wide testing, by gathering radical successful 1 place, mightiness really bash much harm than good. The nationalist university, successful Laramie, serves astir 12,000 students.

“We consciousness similar we person managed our mode done this beauteous well,” Mr. Baldwin said. And with Omicron, helium added, “we’re facing a microorganism that appears to beryllium little unsafe for astir radical — and we’re encouraged.”

Yet nationalist wellness experts are cautioning that field officials should not determination excessively quickly.

“You’ll perceive that radical are bushed of the restrictions and the regulations, and it is concerning to me,” said Gerri Smith Taylor, co-chair of the Covid-19 task unit for the American College Health Association. “I don’t deliberation we person each the information successful connected Omicron and Delta.”

Ms. Taylor said her enactment is awaiting caller guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. An bureau spokeswoman said recommendations were imminent.

At University of California, Davis, Chancellor Gary S. May faced a beardown antagonistic absorption aft a Dec. 30 connection successful which helium characterized the Omicron variant arsenic “milder” and suggested a displacement to “living with Covid-19 astatine an endemic level.”

Classes were expected to resume successful idiosyncratic connected Jan. 10. But a petition signed by 7,500 people, referencing Dr. May’s usage of the word “endemic,” accused the assemblage of “not prioritizing the immuno-compromised, the disabled, unvaccinated people, children, those who unrecorded with radical from immoderate of these groups, oregon the wide wellness of the public.”

Most in-person classes person been delayed until Jan. 31. “People were sharing their concerns, and the field leaders listened,” said Julia Ann Easley, a spokeswoman for the university, who besides noted a increasing Covid-19 case count connected campus.

Rice University, with 8,000 students, moved galore classes to distant acquisition this period and encouraged students to hold returning to field until precocious January. And, similar galore schools, it precocious required students and employees to get booster shots.

Yet its president, David W. Leebron, sees his campus, successful Houston, soon entering what helium called a “posture that recognizes Covid-19 arsenic endemic.”

Mr. Leebron noted successful an interrogation that determination has not been a superior Covid lawsuit wrong the field assemblage successful months, and that helium worries astir the pandemic’s fallout.

“Across campus, determination are intelligence wellness issues,” helium said. “If we person a illness that, for college-age vaccinated radical does not airs a superior risk, those different factors request to beryllium taken into account.”

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Cornell University, successful Ithaca, N.Y., is trying to displacement absorption distant from lawsuit counts. The assemblage has utilized a color-coded strategy — green, yellow, reddish — to emblem the complaint of infection. After an alarming spike successful cases successful December the assemblage unopen down portion of the field and moved last exams online.

For this semester, the assemblage has kept the color-coding, but adapted the guidelines to admit that astir everyone is vaccinated, including 99 percent of students and 100 percent of the faculty.

The extremity present is not to unopen down, she said, but to enactment unfastened arsenic overmuch arsenic possible. That means, among different things, a abbreviated play of distant learning this wintertime and disguise mandates indoors. Students volition beryllium asked not to socialize successful ample groups during the buffer period.

“A afloat vaccinated colonisation is simply a antithetic beast, and we person to benignant of larn to unrecorded differently,” Dr. Pollack said.

Risa L. Lieberwitz, president of the Cornell section of the American Association of University Professors, said that a displacement successful tactics was reasonable.

But she disquieted that module who had valid wellness reasons for teaching online would beryllium hurt.

She pointed to a message to module saying that “full-time distant teaching is not an allowable substitute for in-person instruction.” This belied the conception that module members could inquire for exceptions, she said. “I don’t deliberation that’s an capable effect erstwhile we are successful the mediate of a pandemic.”

A fewer nationalist colleges are rethinking counting cases.

The University of Florida discontinued its Covid dashboard astatine the extremity of the year, and transferred the information handling to the state, which it said successful an email to module could supply a much “sustainable approach,” arsenic the microorganism “becomes endemic.”

West Virginia University announced that it volition nary longer study testing, quarantine and isolation information for the outpouring 2022 semester. But it volition proceed to report vaccination rates for faculty, unit and students, which arsenic of mid-December are overmuch higher connected field than the remainder of the state: 92 percent for module and unit and 82 percent for students.

“It’s not thing that we’re doing to hide, rather the contrary,” said Dr. Gee, the president. “We’re pursuing the information that the C.D.C. and the nationalist wellness section says substance the most.”

Youssef Georgy, a senior, said the ambiance connected field is overmuch much relaxed than it was a twelvemonth ago, erstwhile professors lectured down Plexiglas shields, microorganism investigating was widespread, and sporting events and wide gatherings were canceled.

This year, too schoolroom and common-area disguise requirements, “everything’s beauteous overmuch escaped range,” helium said. “Other than masks, you don’t truly consciousness the beingness of a pandemic.”