Data? According to the university, seven-day-average infectivity rates among students have fallen consistently from 1 percent on the day of the Auburn game to 0.2 percent currently. Students in quarantine, either because they show COVID symptoms or fall within a contact-tracing chain, have dropped from 34 to 4, this in a home-campus population of 46,000. These trends hold for the entire season to date. (The Auburn game was played on September 18; there have been home games before and since then.)

What about the immediately surrounding area and beyond? According to the New York Times COVID tracker, the county surrounding the university (Centre County, population of 162,000, including Penn State students) infections have fluctuated but trended moderately downward through the season. Weekly hospitalization averages have bumped along a plateau, ranging from 39 to 43. The chief hospital in the region, Mount Nittany Medical Center, had 36 COVID patients (28 not vaccinated, eight fully vaccinated) as of October 20. There have been nine deaths in the county. (Penn State is aware of one student death attributed to COVID in July 2020 and another in August 2021; both students contracted the disease and were treated away from campus.) The Pennsylvania Health Department says it hasn’t detected COVID outbreaks anywhere in the state which might be related to Penn State games or other big sporting events.