Look, I don’t want to overreact.

But if Trump wants to start rounding up the college kids and putting them in camps, I’m willing to hear him out.

“It’s a safety issue,” he might say. That might be a nice October surprise if he finds himself still trailing Biden in the final week or two of the race.

Let me quote this bit from a NYT story about the University of Illinois again even though I quoted it already this morning. It fits too well with the clip below not to re-up it. Some college students are so irresponsible that scientists can’t even model their behavior effectively to plan for COVID. They’ve been operating on the assumption that a student who tests positive will react rationally by isolating themselves from others. Not so, my dude.

Second, they had indeed taken into account college partying and quite a bit of it — more than 7,000 students partying three times a week in their model.

What the scientists had not taken into account was that some students would continue partying after they received a positive test result. “It was willful noncompliance by a small group of people,” Dr. Goldenfeld said.

Those were the key ingredients for a few people infecting many others. “If you know you are positive,” Dr. Elbanna said, “and you go to a party, that’s not just a bad act. That’s very, very dangerous.”

It’s not just happening in Illinois, needless to say. Here’s something from Texas that makes me want to open a vein, via TMZ (caution: profanity):

What’s happening at Texas Tech. Side note, I do not know this girl but she was brave enough to post this for others to see! If you are selfish like this with no regards for others safety, fuck off! pic.twitter.com/8K3G85Zkxk

— taylor smith (@tayylorcsmith) September 5, 2020

The clip below comes from Miami University in Ohio. The party there started early last month and it ain’t stopping for no virus:

Miami University has been the single largest contributor to Butler County’s case count since mid-August, according to Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine. He and Miami University president Gregory Crawford attribute the school’s cases — 1,117 of them, most diagnosed in the last two weeks — to off-campus house parties exactly like the one recorded over the weekend.

Although Miami delayed the start of in-person instruction, Crawford said upperclassmen moved back into town in August and began partying when they got there.

“Those early weekends in August, we saw an uptick in parties and gatherings,” he said. “I think that’s what is responsible for the surge today.”

The bodycam video was recorded over Labor Day weekend and starts out as a rudimentary infraction of social-distancing rules. Then it takes a turn halfway through when the cop runs a background check on the bro in the shades and discovers — whoops — he has the ‘rona. Do the other people at the party know? he asks the kid. Sure, he says. They all have it too.

Bear in mind that there were reportedly 20 people or so inside the house while this went on — and some guests were leaving when the cop arrived. Did all 20+ *really* have COVID, and did they all know that? Or did some guests show up not knowing or caring because, hey, free beer?

And a special question for the epidemiologists out there: *Is* it actually safe to be in close quarters with someone if you both have coronavirus? That is, is it true that sharing air with a fellow infected patient does nothing to increase your risk of serious complications? I ask because one of the leading theories of why some people have mild cases and some have severe ones is that the latter group has somehow inhaled a larger viral load of particles than the former group. That’s one of the key assumptions behind the new theory that masks may operate as an ersatz “vaccine” for some people — they may let a small number of coronavirus particles through into your airway, enough to trigger an immune response, while blocking a larger quantity of particles that might have caused you to become seriously ill if they had also been inhaled.

If that’s so then a bunch of bros with COVID sitting around shotgunning beers might be increasing the viral load for some or all in the group. Especially if one is a “superspreader.”

Six of the attendees here were slapped with $500 fines. Imagine having to shell out that kind of dough for something as a dismal as a sausage-party drink-up. Of course they’re listening to Creedence too when the cop rolls up. Of course.

WATCH: While hosting a large house party, Miami University students admit to police they recently tested positive for COVID-19 https://t.co/7LbUJvHSw5 pic.twitter.com/lW3gDqByYj

— CBS News (@CBSNews) September 11, 2020