In Ithaca, college students are back — and masked. But can they maintain it?

Editor's note: Since this article's publication, the number of students cases of COVID-19 at Cornell University linked to social gatherings without masks or social distancing has continued to grow. Find the latest here.

ITHACA — The college kids are back.

On a recent weekend, so much is the same as it would be any other year in Ithaca — plastic folding tables serve as lawn decor, loud cars seemingly without mufflers rip down narrow streets, and finding parking anywhere might as well be an Olympic sport. 

Students stream from their off-campus houses and travel the street in groups, crowding onto tiny sidewalks, half talking to each other, half staring at their cell phones. 

Others run past, nodding along to the music playing in their headphones. Occasionally someone rips by on a longboard, shirtless and artfully weaving through pedestrians. 

But here's the thing: They're all wearing masks. All of them. 

Ithaca College and Cornell University, the two schools that together draw about 30,000 students to Tompkins County, both are re-opening this semester to varying degrees.

Ithaca College announced a decision last week to move all classes entirely online, and Cornell has maintained more of a hybrid structure with some classes meeting in person and others occurring virtually. 

Cornell has started testing students, staff and faculty members who come on campus and announced plans to test between 5,000 and 7,000 people each day. The surveillance testing prompts students and staff to log on to an app each day, and they'll be randomly required to stop by the Cornell Coronavirus Testing Laboratory and collect their own nasal swab under supervision.

Perhaps just as importantly, students at Cornell have promised to abide by a "behavioral compact," vowing to wear their masks and wash their hands and stay home. So far it seems to be working — for the most part.

Cornell students Ashrita Raman, 21, and Shreya Subramanian, 20, roommates that live in an apartment off campus near the Collegetown neighborhood, said many people seem to be taking the regulations seriously.

But there's also some students who want and expect to have their typical, unaltered college experience — and both students and community members are concerned that those few might just ruin it for everyone.

"The Cornell community is doing a good job in following through with wearing masks and social distancing," Subramanian said. "But lately I have been hearing a lot of party sounds from my bedroom, and I'm not sure if those parties are happening in a safe environment with people who have tested negative."

If students hear about or see parties happening that would violate the pledge students signed before they came to campus, Cornell is encouraging them to use an online form to report the behavior. 

On Aug. 29, Tompkins County announced nine new COVID-19 cases connected to student gatherings at Cornell, and by Thursday the university was tracking 39 confirmed cases. The university, which remains in session as normal, said the students who tested positive had been together and "social distancing and mask wearing were not adhered to." 

On Thursday, Cornell elevated its alert level to "Yellow" and limited its student gatherings to 10 people.

And in Oneonta, another college town about 80 miles west of Ithaca, the State University of New York sent all on-campus students home and ceased in-person classes and activities for the rest of the fall semester after more than 350 students tested positive for COVID-19.

As college towns in upstate New York welcome back students, communities are hoping they'll abide by guidelines and do their part to help prevent outbreaks, and local business owners say their livelihoods might well depend on it. But are the students, and the universities that brought them back, capable keeping COVID-19 at bay?

How do you keep COVID off campus?

Last week, Gov. Andrew Cuomo set a mandatory threshold for COVID-19 cases among colleges' students: If a college has more than 100 positive cases or an outbreak equal to more than 5% of the population, whichever is less, it must immediately pivot to online learning for two weeks. 

New Yorkers saw that scenario play out over the weekend at SUNY Oneonta, in Otsego County, which was the first school in the state to be shut down because of COVID-19 infections. Since then, the number of positive cases at Oneonta has more than doubled. On Tuesday, 245 cases were reported.

The 2,000-plus students living on campus are now quarantining in their dorms, having meals brought to their rooms and can't leave campus unless their parents come to pick them up and take them home. 

Cuomo also deployed a COVID-19 "SWAT team" to Oneonta to determine if the virus has spread to the broader community. 

"We should anticipate clusters. When you have large congregations of people, anticipate a cluster. We know that," Cuomo said during a call with reporters last week, prior to Oneonta's outbreak. "Be prepared for it. Get ahead of it."

Read more: SUNY Oneonta: COVID-19 cluster upends small NY college

Read more: Here's what it would take for COVID-19 to shut down New York colleges and universities

Ithaca College, in an unexpected about-face, announced it'd be moving all classes online on Aug. 18. In June, the college had shared a detailed reopening plan that staggered arrival times for students moving in and prepped them for safely attending in-person classes. 

The school will now begin its semester next week entirely online. 

Abby Bealer and Rachel Vogel, two Ithaca College students living off-campus this semester, went for a walk on campus last Friday. 

They weren't wearing masks, but they didn't need them — they had the place to themselves. 

The pair said they moved into their off-campus housing a few weeks ago. They're seniors, and they were eager to get out of their parents' houses, so they moved in to their apartments several weeks early. 

But then they learned in-person classes were no longer happening. Their neighborhood was already kind of quiet since most Ithaca students hadn't returned to the area yet, and now they have a feeling it might stay that way. 

"It's a little strange, but it is what it is," Vogel said. "No one's really here yet. Because we normally move in before classes start, a lot of people that weren't here yet probably aren't coming anymore."

No students, no rent 

Keeping up with the colleges' changing plans is challenging, especially when it comes to off-campus housing. Kim Nitchman is one of those folks — she and her husband run a bed and breakfast in Danby, about seven miles south of Ithaca. 

Since the COVID-19 shutdown in March, she estimates she's lost more than $30,000 in canceled reservations.

"It was a huge loss this year for everybody," Nitchman said, referencing the struggle she and others in the area who own rentals or bed and breakfasts have faced. 

Nitchman's home, the Tenwood Lodge, sits on a 100-plus-acre lot in a valley surrounded by rolling green hills. Occasionally, they'll rent out individual bedrooms in the home, but it's more common for her to rent out the whole house for large groups whose members want to stay together while they're in town. 

Sometimes, that means renting to entire families who want to come up for commencement, or to a capella groups who are in town for a reunion performance.

Of course, COVID-19 itself has changed how she does things. She leaves rooms empty for two or three days between guests, asks that everyone wear masks in shared spaces and no longer serves breakfast to all her guests together at the massive dining room table.

But on top of that, so much of what happens at Ithaca and Cornell trickles down and affects her business, she said. 

"We were set up to have the best year ever," she said. "Now, if we're lucky, we'll have 40% of last year's revenue."

The situation has been equally frustrating for Cheryl Beach, a landlord who owns seven rental houses in Ithaca. In the past, she's never had a problem finding tenants.

But when COVID-19 shut down the schools and sent students back home almost six months ago, she saw student breaking leases and refusing to pay rent. And those who had signed leases for the upcoming fall semester suddenly stopped returning her calls about whether they were planning to come back. 

She had a hard time pinpointing an exact number in terms of how much money she's lost. It's stressful, she said, and part of her doesn't want to even know.

She estimates it's tens of thousands of dollars, and explained that she's become extremely careful with her money and how she spends it now. 

"We've got school taxes coming up, and I don't know what I'm going to do with that," Beach said. "It's so depressing. I'm very cautious now."

A lot of Ithaca College students (and their parents) are looking for four-month leases so students can go back to on-campus housing if the college allows it in January.

But to rent an apartment for such a short period only to face difficulty trying to find new tenants at the start of 2021 seems daunting, she said. 

"Who wants to rent for four months?" Beach said. "What would I do for the rest of the year, you know? It's not worth it to me."

'I think they have it in them to be good'

Last Friday, Ithaca Commons — Ithaca's downtown, pedestrian-friendly shopping hub — was fairly crowded as people ate outside or strolled along the brick pathways with masks on. 

Deirdre Kurzweil, who owns a souvenir shop in the Commons called Sunny Days of Ithaca, is doing everything she can to be careful now that Ithaca's population has surged with students returning to town. 

Her shop's entrance is blocked off by a retractable belt barrier (the kind you'd see near the checkout lines at a department store), and there's a detailed sign at the door, advising customers about wearing masks, sanitizing their hand before they enter and using a basket to shop so that Kurzweil and her husband can clean everything they touch.

In March, April and May, sales at the store dropped off to almost nothing, she said. In July and August, when they could reopen the store, things picked back up and business has been surprisingly good. 

But with students coming back — and potentially spreading COVID-19 in the community — Kurzweil is worried about weathering another shutdown. Her business did OK last spring, but doing it all over again could be fatal.

It's going to be critical for everyone in the area — the schools, the community and the students themselves — to hold everyone to a high standard when it comes to controlling the spread of COVID-19.

"I embrace the university, because we couldn't be what we are without Cornell, but it is a little nerve-wracking," she said. "I think that they're adults. ... I think they have it in them to be good, and I hope we set the bar high."

Kurzweil lives a few streets away from her shop and said she hasn't seen any behavior that would be cause for concern. But she's heard through social media about other things her neighbors have seen, and she knows it's impossible to believe all students are following the rules perfectly. 

So for now, the community is collectively holding its breath. Waiting, watching, hoping students think about the greater good. There's not much else they can do, she said. 

"The part of me that needs to pay rent is obviously relieved that people are coming," Kurzweil said. "The part of me that is concerned about so many people coming? We're just nervous as a community. It's been so safe, and there's a lot out of our control now."

GSILVAROLE@Gannett.com

Georgie Silvarole is a backpack reporter for the USA TODAY Network's New York State Team. You can reach her by email or follow her on Twitter @gsilvarole.