Moving Medical Students into Shared Housing During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

A new academic year began in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to allow for in-person learning, a fundamental part of medical education, some medical schools grappled with how to safely move students into shared on-campus housing. The authors describe a behavior-based strategy to safely move students from all parts of the United States to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York. This strategy included a school-organized phased move-in that included 14-day quarantines for students coming from states with high COVID prevalence; requiring students to sign a COVID-agreement; the use of a phone-based daily COVID risk assessment; and facilitation of safe in-person social activities with peer monitoring of adherence to behavior guidelines. This strategy resulted in no known transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in student housing between July and October of the 2020 to 2021 academic year. The authors share this strategy in the hope that colleagues at other medical schools will find it useful in utilizing similar behavior-based strategies to keep students safe in shared housing.