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College students began arriving in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in early March for annual spring festivities amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Observers seeing recent reports of crowds of maskless young people, many presumed to be college students, partying on Florida beaches for spring break may have had flashbacks to March 2020, when the scenes were much the same, just weeks after the coronavirus pandemic had been declared and colleges were hastily throwing together plans to keep potentially infected students away from campus.
Students at the time were either unaware of the risks that the virus posed or blatantly disregarding those risks, as they reveled in Miami and Daytona Beach. Some people may have been surprised to see the same behaviors being repeated this year, albeit with greater public knowledge about the virus and as the new vaccines are being administered to people across the country. Experts tracking student behavior during the pandemic were not at all