Receiving the email “We hope you are keeping well and safe in these unprecedented times” has become a source of agitation for the majority of us at this point. We have been preoccupied with wistful daydreams about campus reopening for well over a year and we long to settle back into a familiar routine. The government’s decision to open vaccines for people aged 18 and above, as well as the vaccination camp set up on campus has culminated in the hope that campus reopening is a realistic possibility in Fall. An email sent out by the Vice-Chancellor on May 27th states that the “Vaccination policy is a necessary step towards safely opening the campus this Fall”. However, many aspects of the speculated campus reopening have remained shrouded in ambiguity; including the nature of the reopening, the immunization of the incoming freshman batch, and the reimbursement of vaccine costs to NOP scholars and Financial Aid students. Moreover, the surfacing of the Delta variant in Sindh and the alarming plausibility of a ‘fourth wave’ means that the possibility of an in-person semester still hangs in the balance. Amid this uncertainty, conversations with the Student Council President Anoosh Fatima Khan and the Dean of MGSHSS Dr. Ali Khan have lent some clarity and coherence to this issue.
The Nature of Reopening
While there seems to be a consensus among the student body that the campus will reopen in Fall, the nature of said reopening has remained unclear and been subjected to much conjecture and guesswork. Some have hypothesized that the reopening in Fall would entail the end of online learning and a resumption of in-person classes, whereas others have surmised the possibility of a staggered reopening similar to the one seen in the Spring semester. Dr. Ali Khan’s remarks have thwarted some of these assumptions while confirming others. “I don’t think it will open fully. It will be phased, along the lines of what we did a few months ago,” he stated. He further clarified that the resumption of in-person classes is currently very risky due to the problems posed by enclosed spaces. Despite the vaccine rollout, Dr. Khan insists on remaining cautious to some degree, “What we have learned from the pandemic is that as soon as you stop taking precautions, cases go back up.” He communicated how unfortunate it is that the “students, faculty, and staff don’t take responsibility themselves, then ask what LUMS will do”. On the other hand, the Student Council President, Anoosh, is relatively more optimistic about the reopening in Fall. “It will definitely be better than Spring, that is a surety. That was a really difficult time. But this time, we are seeing the schools are doing fine, the universities are doing fine, so we are hopeful that it’s going to be much, much better this time,” she stated. She further hinted at the resumption of more in-person classes “depending on however the ventilation process pans out.”
Reimbursement of Vaccine Costs to NOP Scholars and Financial Aid Students
The vaccination of NOP scholars and students on Financial Aid below 18 via private channels is also integral to the safe reopening of the campus in Fall. According to Anoosh, the university has set down reimbursement policies to ensure this, “They will reimburse the vaccination costs to NOP scholars. Students with 70% or above financial aid will be completely reimbursed, and people with below 70% financial aid are going to receive a 50% reimbursement on vaccination costs.” Dr. Ali Khan also highlighted that the LUMS vaccination camp was set up solely for the convenience of students.
Vaccinating the Incoming Batch
Vaccinating the incoming freshman batch will be crucial to campus reopening in Fall. As Anoosh stated, “ If we are vaccinated and there are like 1200 people coming in who are not, then that puts the numbers completely out of proportion.” Clarifying that the incoming batch does not fall under the Council’s domain, she recalled a conversation with Dr. Ali Khan, and remarked, “They’re going to make the vaccination mandatory by mentioning it on the offer letters so that when they (first-year students) come in, they are vaccinated.” However, the Council is still awaiting the administration’s final word on this. She also shed light on other mechanisms that are being implemented to ensure that the arrival of the incoming batch on campus does not result in a spike in cases. For instance, she even stated that “the O-Week management is considering whether to plan an on-campus O-Week or not”.
The Impact of the Delta Variant on campus reopening prospects
Recently, news has surfaced about a few cases of the “Delta variant” being found in Karachi, and authorities in Sindh sounded alarmed about a ‘fourth wave’ as a result. This is a new variant of Covid’19 which was first detected in India and is believed to have greater transmissibility. The looming shadow of the new variant and how it could interfere with campus reopening plans in Fall has become a source of distress for many students. Dr. Ali Khan has also voiced concern about this, “I’m currently in London, over 60% of people have received their doses here, and even then there is a surge in cases due to the Delta variant.” Speaking on how the variant could impact campus reopening prospects, Anoosh stated, “You can’t really have a very solid prediction with the Covid situation. The entire point is to make the policies in a way that we stay adaptive to the situation. Yesterday the news said that the positivity ratio for Lahore was about 1.2% which is very low. So that does show there is some kind of progress at the moment. Now, God forbid, if there is a huge surge in cases in the future, then naturally we will have to take that into consideration.”
While the vaccine rollout anchors us into some certainty regarding campus reopening in Fall, it is evident from the remarks of the Student Council President and the MGSHSS Dean that the emergence of the new variant, the evolving Covid-19 landscape in Pakistan, and the efficacy of the university’s own protective measures against the virus will have to be taken into consideration before a return to normal campus life can be envisioned. Would campus reopening in Fall remain a pipe dream for us? Only time will tell. Nevertheless, we can still hope that the numbers balance out and LUMS takes appropriate measures to accommodate its students so that we can miraculously sink back into our pre-covid lives. Student protests loom on the horizon as the ambiguity from the admin’s side deepens and the student body’s expectations escalate with time. As tensions run high, all of these aspects bubble and brew into a dangerous potion.