COVID-19 on Clemson University's Campus

 by: Raine T. Riley, October 18, 2020

            Students have been on campus for nearly 5 weeks now. Between online class meetings, quarantining, and coping with a global pandemic, it has been an unorthodox start to the semester to say the least. Conversations about COVID-19 have fluctuated as it has begun to feel like a normal part of our lives. This week conversations about COVID-19 and Clemson or Clemson University increased 15% from the previous week. A 15% increase begs the question “what happened this week to bring COVID-19 back into the forefront of our minds?”

            61% of the conversations about COVID-19 and Clemson came from Twitter, 16% from mainstream news, and 9% from YouTube. The conversation peak hit on Thursday, October 15 when an article from Clemson’s on-campus newspaper revealed that Clemson University has the highest cumulative positive case count of all universities in the United States. The article got shared across social media platforms and got picked up by local and national news sources. One Tweet from Andy Thomason of The Chronicle earned 143 retweets, 42 quote tweets, and 159 likes alone. The Tweet stated that nearly 1 in 6 Clemson students have tested positive for COVID-19, given the cumulative positive case count.

            Clemson Athletics also played part in the conversation this week as they released their latest COVID-19 update on Friday, October 16. The majority of the conversation (56%) was coded by our sentiment software as neutral, mostly of people sharing the article and general statistics. Some of the conversation skewed negative with concerns about transparency of testing procedures within the university as well as concerns about long-term effects of COVID-19 on college students and the potential for death among college students. The positive sentiments were mostly sarcastic, with jokes about Clemson University being national champions yet again and beging "#1." 

Football and other schools showed up a lot in the top words because of the ongoing COVID-19 protocols and safety procedures within college football. As well, Alabama head coach Nick Saban received a positive COVID-19 test earlier in the week which skewed some of the COVID-19 conversation.

Testing protocols at Clemson were brought up in the conversation, with some speculating that Clemson is reporting more cases because they are testing more or doing their “due diligence” as opposed to other schools. On the subreddit r/Clemson/ this week, the news article was shared, and subsequent comments described and questioned the testing procedures. Some students mentioned that they had been tested multiple times while others had not been tested at all. People engaged with one another to answer questions and help others understand the testing method and random selection. Information was also shared about who to speak with if there were any questions or concerns, or a need to be removed from the random selection list.