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We’re only a week into the semester and four COVID-19 clusters have already surfaced on and around campus. Two COVID-19 clusters — one at Granville Towers and one at Ehringhaus Residence Hall — were reported Friday. On Saturday, UNC confirmed reports of a third cluster at the Sigma Nu fraternity house, and a fourth, at Hinton James Residence Hall, was reported Sunday. In the messages, UNC clarified that a “cluster” is five or more cases deemed "close proximity in location," as defined by the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services. We all saw this coming. In his fall semester welcome message, Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz wrote, “As always, remember that it is our shared responsibility to keep each other safe. Every person you walk by on campus will be counting on you to diligently work to prevent the spread of the virus.” But University leadership should have expected students, many of whom are now living on their own for the first time, to be reckless. (8/17)

At N.C. State and UNC-CH, recent memos from Chancellors Woodson and Guskiewicz indicate that masks and social distancing will be generally required on both campuses. While such action is supported by epidemiological evidence to prevent the spread of the virus, the efficacy of these measures relies on the assumption that every person on campus will willingly comply with the proposed health and safety regulations. However, there is no clear proposal for how these measures will be enforced, or who would be in charge of enforcing them. (John Hedlund,, 8/17)

Who should be at the front of the line if an effective Covid-19 vaccine emerges from testing? The answer depends on what we learn from the kind of field trials Russia is skipping. Some vaccines might not be that good at preventing infection, but would prevent severe cases. Those should be given to those most likely to die from the disease — older people or those with conditions associated with death from Covid-19. But if a vaccine actually prevents transmission, then priority should go to those who transmit the disease most often:  younger adults. Getting protected with a vaccine is a way of protecting others, since you can’t give anyone the disease if you never get it. And starting with younger people could be the fastest route to herd immunity — that phenomenon by which the virus is slowed by a lack of susceptible hosts. (Faye Flam, 8/14)

As Covid-19 continues to divide social groups, generational relationships are being tested like never before. Young people in the prime of their social lives are being asked to stay distant in tiny apartments; the emotional, economic and psychological effects are clear and also likely long-lasting. Waiting for a vaccine feels interminably long to everyone, of course, and with immunity hardly a given, it’s tough to blame young adults for throwing caution to the wind. This pandemic has hardly been our era’s great equalizer, but as cases have begun to skew younger, perhaps even those of us who feel invincible will step back and find common ground over a virus that, by itself, doesn’t discriminate. (Brooke Sample, 8/16)

I often use this column to warn about the dangers of apps that track you. This time, I’m going to recommend you actually install one. There’s a new kind of app that uses your smartphone’s Bluetooth wireless signals to figure out when you’ve been in contact with someone who has tested positive for the novel coronavirus. It pops up the world’s most stressful-yet-helpful notification: “You have likely been exposed.” For the past week and a half, 35 Washington Post staff members have been helping me test America’s first exposure-notification app using technology from Apple and Google. It’s called Covidwise, and works in the state of Virginia. Made by state health departments, similar apps are also now available in North Dakota (Care19 Alert), Wyoming (also called Care19 Alert), and Alabama (Guidesafe). In total, 20 states and territories are developing apps that will cover nearly half the U.S. population. (Geoffrey A. Fowler, 8/17)

Six months into the global coronavirus pandemic, Americans trying to navigate daily life remain trapped between a clear ideal — the country needs to test as many people as possible for the virus, as regularly as possible, for as long as possible — and the reality that there are nowhere near enough tests in the United States to do that. Widespread testing is the key to opening schools and businesses safely. It’s the only way to get a handle on where the coronavirus is spreading, whether efforts to control it are working and what precautions are needed in any given community at any given moment. But funding shortfalls and bottlenecks mean that nearly every entity in the country is falling far short of that goal. (8/16)

A late-summer heat wave in Southern California typically sends people fleeing to movie theaters, shopping malls and crowded beaches in search of a cool respite. But the coronavirus pandemic has forced the closure of places where people once gathered, upending those routines. (Alex Wigglesworth, Jack Dolan, 8/16)

Across Texas, some nursing homes are opening up to visitors after the state’s Health and Human Services Commission announced last week that those facilities that have passed two weeks without active coronavirus cases would be permitted to do so. The move comes five months after nursing homes and other long-term care facilities were shut down to visitors to limit risk of contagion among one of the state’s most vulnerable populations. This is great news for patients and their families who have struggled with isolation throughout these long months of the pandemic. But it is a new and bold step that must come with much vigilance. (8/18)

COVID-19 continues to have a devastating impact across the country. Case surges occurring in the South and West demonstrate that the virus, and our work to combat it, is far from over. In Michigan, despite a more recent slow-down in rates of infection, confirmed COVID-19 cases have surpassed 88,000. Without continued diligence to take the right precautionary measures, like wearing masks and investments in testing and tracing, we run the risk of the virus rebounding here in Michigan, as we have seen in other parts of the country. (Garth Graham and Garlin Gilchrist, 8/17)