Protecting higher education institutions from COVID-19: insights from an Italian experience

Abstract

Higher education institutions (HEIs) worldwide have been deeply affected by the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and subsequent lockdown measures. HEIs are environments at high risk of COVID-19 diffusion, due to the high number of people sharing the same environment, and complex to protect, because of the multiple functions present (e.g. teaching rooms, research facilities, dormitories). Protection of HEIs is therefore a serious, but apparently neglect, public health issue. Italy was the first country to be heavily hit in Europe by COVID-19. Italian HEIs had to quickly respond to the emergency with multifaceted interventions to protect all the people on campus while guaranteeing the continuity of research and teaching activities. The purpose of this viewpoint is to propose and discuss a list of priority actions for the protection of HEIs, based on international guidelines and the experience of a small size Italian Public University and Research campus.

Keywords:

• Coronavirus
• COVID-19
• emergency preparedness
• infection control
• university health services

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank all the students and employees of Sant’Anna School for their collaboration in this difficult period, all the components of the COVID-19 response team for their efforts, Lara Tavoschi and Chiara Barchielli for their suggestions on the manuscript.

Authors' contributions

FQ conceived the article, AB and FQ equally contributed to write the article, ME and SN equally contributed to manuscript revision.

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. All Authors are components of the Sant’Anna School COVID-19 response team.

Ethics committee approval

The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of Italy. This viewpoint does not imply an experimental design, therefore there was no need of Institutional Review Board approval.