Editorial: Dismay - and some hope - as college resumes

How do you pack for college?

With a truck full of belongings and a set of matching new towels and sheets?

Or, as if you're taking a short trip and will be back home in just a few weeks? Because, you know, you might be.

Experiences at the University of North Carolina, Notre Dame and other colleges - where COVID-19 outbreaks began almost as soon as students arrived - offer a sobering view of how the back-to-campus experiment is going.

Is there a safer way to keep crowds of social distancing-averse kids together for a college learning experience?

And if it turns out to be inevitable that the highly contagious disease strikes hard, where should those college students go, and who should have responsibility for housing or caring for them?

UNC and Notre Dame pivoted to remote learning after hundreds got sick shortly after coming to campus. Hearing the news, Michigan State University notified most students who were due to move into dorms in less than two weeks that they should just stay home.

While UNC did not test arriving students, Notre Dame did, raising more questions about how to control COVID-19 among young adults living in close quarters.

We hope - cautiously, because this disease is a wily foe - the University of Illinois' approach will show success when classes begin next week.

Researchers at the U of I at Urbana-Champaign developed a saliva test that delivers results within five hours, compared to up to a week for tests offered at public health sites across Illinois. The university aims to test everyone twice a week, and entry to most campus buildings depends on compliance, which is tracked on an app or campus card.

The test won FDA approval on Wednesday.

"Fast and frequent, that's absolutely the key," Martin Burke, a U of I chemistry professor who helped develop the test, told NPR. If saliva tests do work out, could that be the game-changer that makes indoor gatherings safer for all of as winter looms? We'll watch U of I closely to see whether that hope is realistic.

Meanwhile, on Monday, The Daily Tar Heel student newspaper reported only four rooms remained available in UNC's quarantine dorm. Many students were leaving campus. Just as UNC didn't test on the way in, it isn't testing on the way out - creating the likelihood that the university will share its COVID-19 outbreak with communities across the nation.