Abstract
College students represent a large group of people who frequently travel across regions, which increased their risk of infection and exacerbated the risk of COVID-19 spread throughout China. This study uses survey data from the end of April 2020 to analyze the status of COVID-19-infected cases, the group differences, and influencing factors in college students in Wuhan. The sample size was made up 4355 participants, including 70 COVID-19-infected students. We found that during the COVID-19 outbreak in early 2020, college students in Wuhan were primarily infected during off-campus events after winter break or infected in their hometowns after leaving Wuhan; the percentage of college students with severe cases was relatively low, and most had mild cases; however, a large proportion of asymptomatic cases may exist; there were significant group differences in gender, age and place of residence; and the risk of infection was closely related to the campus environment, in which the population density and number of faculty and students on campus had a significant impact. The results indicated that the infection of students did not occur at random, thus strengthening student health education and campus management can help curb the spread of COVID-19 among students.
Highlights
On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) a pandemic [1].With large-scale populations traveling withinChina and around the world during the Spring Festival period, including a large number of college students and international students, COVID-19 spread across the globe [2,3,4].Wuhan is one of the cities with the largest populations of college students in the world, with as many as 1.2 million
Such a large number of students returning home from college can increase their risk of infection and exacerbate the risk of COVID-19 spreading throughout China and beyond
First, 13 representative colleges were randomly selected from 83 colleges, and the number of students selected from each college was proportional to the number of enrollments in each college; second, 30% of the departments were randomly selected in each selected college, and the number of students selected from each department was proportional to the number of students in the department; the sample pool in the department was established using the students’ identity (ID) number, and the corresponding students
Summary
Wuhan is one of the cities with the largest populations of college students in the world, with as many as 1.2 million. Such a large number of students returning home from college can increase their risk of infection and exacerbate the risk of COVID-19 spreading throughout China and beyond. College students often have highly concentrated activities and frequent interactions on campus and travel across China in large numbers; after the outbreak, all colleges and universities across the country (all levels and all types) closed and instead, students attended online classes at home.
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