Higher Learning, Higher Infection

Many of us live in dread of Covid-19 creeping into our children's classrooms. Little kids, getting sick, bringing the virus back home to their siblings, parents, perhaps grandparents. Scary stuff.

But it doesn't seem to scare the older kids, those returning to college and university campuses. They're getting back and a lot of them are hitting it pretty hard.

Music blared outside a row of off-campus houses on Saturday near the University of North Georgia as hundreds of students packed the streets and front yards. Virtually no one wore a mask.

The huge party in Dahlonega, Ga., captured in a viral Twitter video, was one of a number of mass gatherings around the country this weekend as tens of thousands of students returned to college towns already on edge amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Local officials from Georgia to Alabama to Oklahoma reacted with horror and anger on Sunday, warning that unless students take social distancing and mask rules seriously, the fall semester could come to a swift end.

“Why?” tweeted Walt Maddox, mayor of Tuscaloosa, Ala., above a photo of hundreds of mostly mask-free University of Alabama students outside downtown restaurants. “We are desperately trying to protect @tuscaloosacity.”