Auburn, AL (EETV) - With the start of the 2021 fall semester at Auburn, Dr. Fred Kam, director of the Auburn University Medical Clinic, spoke on classes returning to in-person, the importance of vaccinations, Delta variant and more.
Campus life is back at Auburn for the first time in over a year, this time with more students than the University has ever recorded. More than 5,300 registered freshmen are on-campus for the fall semester, making it the largest freshman class admitted in Auburn history. However, more people on-campus allows for easier transmission of COVID-19 and the new Delta variant.
"We understand that everyone wants to just be normal, but we are not in that situation yet to go back to complete normality," Dr. Kam said. "We still have work to do, and there are things we can and should be doing; otherwise, we are just dragging this thing out further."
On Tuesday, Aug. 3, the University announced the requirement of masks inside all University buildings and University transportation for all individuals regardless of vaccination status. The need for students to get back to campus for their mental health and academics pushed the University to develop a mask strategy.
"In regards to the masks, it is the number one nonpharmaceutical medicated strategy against the spread of a respiratory virus," Dr. Kam said.
The University began offering COVID-19 vaccinations on-campus during the spring semester of 2021 and, as of Aug. 13, has administered 15,749 vaccine doses.
"My guesstimate if I took the number of students that have been vaccinated... I think that we are probably well over 50% of the student population," Dr. Kam said. "But 50 percent isn't going to cut it with the Delta variant; we have to get up to the 80-85 percent range."
With the growing rise of the Delta variant and how infectious it is, the importance of getting vaccinated is more significant than ever. With COVID-19, symptoms will begin to show after about five to seven days, but it only takes a couple of days with the Delta variant. Also, the Delta variant is more targeted to the middle-aged and younger age group, but so far, no students have been hospitalized due to the variant.
"What we are seeing with the Delta variant is fever, headache, sore throat and sinus congestion," Dr. Kam said. "For the most part, young people do relatively well with this disease themselves. They either have no symptoms or mild symptoms, but some have severe symptoms."
The question, though, everyone is asking is if the Delta variant will play a factor in this year's football season and other athletic events. Auburn had previously announced that Jordan-Hare Stadium will be at full capacity when it kickoffs its season on Sep. 4 against the Akron Zips, and it still plans on obtaining that goal. An announcement has yet to be made about masks being mandated inside the stadium or not, but expect to hear a statement in the coming days.
"Do I expect there to be people in the stadium that possibly have Covid; yes, do I expect there is a possible chance they could transmit; yes," Dr. Kam said.
"They can transmit in a grocery store; they can transmit it church; they can transmit in a lot of places," Dr. Kam said. "At the end of the day, it's going to come down to what they personally do to prevent getting it themselves or giving it to someone."
As long as the University continues to try and reach the 80-85 vaccination percent, all on-campus activities will continue.
"We came out of a very successful spring semester, and that gave us the foundation to set up for a very successful fall semester which is where we are at, but we are still at the start and still have work to do," Dr. Kam said.
