With Covid-19 cases surging on campus and the in-person semester hanging by a thread, officials at Brigham Young University-Idaho weren’t taking any chances.
They had received reports that, at any other time, might have seemed too bizarre to take seriously: that some students were deliberately exposing themselves to Covid-19 so they would be paid more for their antibody-rich plasma.
“The university condemns this behavior and is actively seeking evidence of any such conduct among our student body,” the officials warned in a statement posted Monday on the university’s coronavirus-update page. “Students who are determined to have intentionally exposed themselves or others to the virus will be immediately suspended from the university and may be permanently dismissed.” The officials declined to comment further on where the reports had come from and how the investigation was progressing.
If students were, indeed, trying to get infected with Covid-19 to be paid more, they might have seen the idea in an article last week in EastIdahoNews.com. It suggested that anyone looking to earn extra cash during the pandemic could consider giving plasma, the liquid part of blood that’s typically separated from blood cells.
The article quoted representatives of local plasma centers talking about the life-saving benefits of plasma during the pandemic and the urgent need for more. People who have recovered from Covid-19 have antibodies that can help others who are fighting the disease. The article also cited centers where people could receive $100 or $200 per donation once they’ve recovered from the virus. Compensation for donors who haven’t had Covid-19 starts at $20 or $25, the plasma-center representatives said.
It didn’t take long for the speculation, and the backlash, to spread. One reader, referring to the city where BYU-Idaho is located, responded in the comments section: “The college kids in Rexburg are purposely trying to get Covid so they can get the antibody and double their plasma income. Hilarious and dangerous at the same time. …"
The reporter who wrote the article, Rett Nelson, told The Chronicle that he had asked around town to see if he could substantiate the readers’ fears. The closest he got was the owner of a local hair salon who told him that “she’s had students come in and say they’re trying to get Covid.”
It’s hard to know how much substance lay beneath the rumors. In other states, stories about “Covid parties” — where students who figure they’re going to be infected anyway try to get it over with and have fun doing so — have sometimes turned out to be more of an urban myth.
In July, for instance, CNN reported that students in Tuscaloosa, Ala., home of the flagship University of Alabama campus, were said to be throwing Covid-19 parties where the first person to be infected got a payout. The information was attributed to a local city-council member who said she’d heard it from fire officials. The Alabama Department of Public Health was unable to confirm that such parties had taken place, a spokesperson said on Wednesday.
The Idaho university had reasons to err on the side of caution. Last month it issued a statement expressing alarm at the sharp increase in Covid-19 cases in the region and on campus. It warned that the failure to heed public-health warnings could result in the suspension of students and the shutdown of the entire campus.
The infection numbers were still rising this week, with 119 active student cases and 20 active employee cases as of Tuesday. Also on Tuesday, The New York Times listed Rexburg as the metro area with the most new cases, relative to its population, over the previous two weeks.
BYU-Idaho is one of three universities in Idaho that the White House’s coronavirus task force recommended move completely online because of alarming increases in Covid-19 cases in their counties.
Mimi Taylor, a spokesperson for Eastern Idaho Public Health, the regional health department, said that so far the stories of students’ deliberately infecting themselves appear to be “just rumors.” She cited “random social-media comments” and calls from reporters who’d received anonymous tips.
The university said in a statement that “there is never a need to resort to behavior that endangers health or safety in order to make ends meet.” Students were encouraged to contact the student-wellness office to learn about financial, health, academic, and other resources.
After the student newspaper posted a message about the issue on its Facebook page, the paper’s content manager, Natalie Elowitt, said she had been “blown away” by a reader’s response that her brother-in-law had been trying to infect himself.
Elowitt said she realizes many young people, especially in her conservative county, have belittled the risk of Covid-19 and aren’t taking proper precautions. “But this is crazy. We’d been hearing the rumors for a while, but it’s not something I’d even joke about. I have high-risk family members and know others who have it and are miserable,” she added. “At the same time, I feel sympathy for people who need economic help bad enough that they’d expose themselves to a deadly virus.”
