The introduction of the Radboud University and the HAN has led to almost no new infections in Nijmegen. ‘This is without a question partly the result of the high vaccination rate among students,’ says a speaker of the GGD Gelderland-Zuid.

During Radboud University’s introduction, it was almost back to normal. Social distancing on the introduction market between the Maria Montessori building, the Berchmanianum and the Erasmus building proved difficult to maintain. During the nine Radboud Introshows, a test-for-entrance event on the Honigterrein, 750 students per show could go wild without masks or one and a half meters distance.

Small clusters

After last year’s introduction, some student cafés had to close their doors because of Corona infections. Now, the situation is quite different. According to Jan Scholten, speaker of the GGD Gelderland-Zuid, there were only sixty new infections that could be traced back to the introduction week in Nijmegen. ‘Most infections are distributed over the different mentor groups,’ he says. ‘We saw a few small clusters within studies.’

Despite the large groups of students, large-scale infection breakouts could be prevented. Additionally, the total number of infections in the region didn’t increase between last week and the weeks before. ‘This is without a question partly the result of the high vaccination rate that, according to source and contact tracing, is present among students,’ says Scholten. On top of that, he also praises the good coordination between the GGD and the mentors.

Nation-wide trend

The GGD speaker doesn’t think that the Corona numbers are going to increase further because of the introduction. ’It has been two weeks, so we have had the bulk of infections until now. The only thing that can still happen is that there will be additional infections because of hazing or introduction days of the student associations. But we don’t see that in the numbers as of now.’

With that, Radboud University’s introduction week follows a nation-wide trend. Despite the thousands of students that participated in the introduction weeks, there were no large-scale infection breakouts, according to the National Consultation and Contact for Introduction Weeks (LOCI) in a statement to the higher education press office last week.