https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/01/us/coronavirus-texas-austin-spring-break-cabo.html
28 Texas Students Have Coronavirus After Spring Break Trip
A group of about 70 students from the University of Texas at Austin celebrated spring break in Mexico, but returned to find that 28 had tested positive. Dozens more are being monitored.
College students from all over the country crowded the beaches of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on March 11. Students also traveled to spring break destinations in Mexico, Alabama, Tennessee and elsewhere, and some of them are now testing positive for the coronavirus.Credit...Saul Martinez for The New York Times
By David Montgomery and
Manny Fernandez
I know these kids are young and dumb, but isn't it odd that 28 got infected in Mexico..where the numbers are pretty low?
- April 1, 2020Updated 3:22 p.m. ET
AUSTIN — Two weeks ago, amid the global coronavirus pandemic, about 70 students from the University of Texas at Austin partied in Mexico on spring break. The students, all in their 20s, flew on a chartered plane to Cabo San Lucas, and some returned on separate commercial flights to Texas.
Now, 28 of them have tested positive for the virus and are self-isolating. Dozens more are under quarantine and are being monitored and tested, university officials said Wednesday.
PRANKSTERS IN A PANDEMIC
Some
bad behavior has crossed the line into criminal terrorist acts.
The Austin outbreak is the latest to result from a group of college students who ignored social-distancing guidelines, went on
traditional spring break trips and have now tested positive for the coronavirus. Many of them appeared to be under the mistaken impression that young people were not as vulnerable to the coronavirus as older people. Students at the
University of Tampa, the
University of Wisconsin at Madison and other colleges have tested positive after returning from spring break trips to Florida, Alabama, Tennessee and elsewhere.
The defiant attitude, at a time when millions of Americans were hunkered down at home and staying away from school, work and relatives, was
embodied by Brady Sluder, a young man on spring break in Miami who declared on a packed beach in a widely shared television interview: “If I get corona, I get corona. At the end of the day, I’m not going to let it stop me from partying.” Mr. Sluder later
apologized on Instagram.
THE GREAT LEVELER
Regardless of wealth,
hospitals are all facing shortage of equipment in Los Angeles.
In Austin, health officials with the city government and the university have contacted every young person who was on the chartered plane, using flight manifests from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the authorities said. City health officials used the case to urge residents of all ages to stay home and to avoid nonessential travel. Four of the 28 students who tested positive had not shown any symptoms of the coronavirus.
“The virus often hides in the healthy and is given to those who are at grave risk of being hospitalized or dying,” Dr. Mark E. Escott, the interim medical director and health authority for the city of Austin and Travis County, said in a statement. “While younger people have less risk for complications, they are not immune from severe illness and death from Covid-19,” the disease caused by the coronavirus.
FLORIDA SHELTER IN PLACE
Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, said on Wednesday that he will
order the state’s more than 21 million residents to largely stay at home.
U.T. Austin canceled classes on March 13 and resumed instruction online on Monday.
“The incident is a very strong reminder of the importance of taking seriously the warnings of public health authorities on the risks of Covid-19,” said J.B. Bird, director of media relations at the university.
I know they shouldn't have gone on this trip. Isn't it odd that 28 got infected on the trip in Mexico where the numbers are low?