UNC promotes tradition of taking a sip from the Old Well. It’s a look some don’t love
A UNC-Chapel Hill first day of class tradition — taking a sip from the Old Well water fountain for good luck — returned Wednesday, with hundreds of students waiting their turn to drink.
But some on social media thought that the campus should’ve skipped the tradition with COVID-19 cases rising statewide.
For hours, a slow-moving line of students stretched down Cameron Avenue toward the Old Well. Most wore masks while they stood with friends, then took the masks off to take a photo and a drink.
UNC lore is that drinking from the Old Well on the first day will help students earn good grades throughout the school year, perhaps a perfect 4.0 GPA.
The tradition was canceled last year because of the pandemic. The university raised money then to give students symbolic bottles of water (not from the Old Well) to keep some semblance of the tradition alive.
A bad practice?
It wasn’t long after the university’s official Twitter account tweeted photos Wednesday afternoon showing the students lined up to drink that the snarky responses started coming in. Some were concerned that it’s not only a bad look, but a bad practice given the rising COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in North Carolina.
“Sorry, but this seems irresponsible to have the water fountains open again. The Delta variant is way more contagious. For those who refuse to get vaccinated it could be deadly. I give it 2 weeks before classes are forced to go online,” one person replied to the tweet.
“Really excited for all these people to share a water fountain in the middle of a pandemic and then head out into the local community!” another tweet said.
“Y’all better not give the Old Well the Rona,” another said.
One UNC-CH student questioned whether she should be getting a public relations graduate degree “from an institution that obviously lacks basic PR skills” in a tweet sharing the photos.
Is it risky with COVID-19?
On Wednesday evening, the university issued a statement that said, with UNC-CH returning to an on-campus experience, the Old Well remained on and functional for students to take a good luck sip, which is “a time-honored tradition at Carolina.”
“The University consulted with public health experts prior to the event, and the experts agreed the tradition was fine to proceed, as there is little to no evidence of surface transmission of the coronavirus,” the statement said.
Students were encouraged to wear masks while waiting in line and university ambassadors were there to help support physical distancing.
Dr. Audrey Pettifor, an epidemiologist in the UNC Gillings School of Public Health, said the risk associated with the first sip tradition is “probably fairly low.”
She said because COVID-19 is a respiratory virus and mainly airborne there’s a risk if people are in close proximity without masks, but it helps that the activity is outside.
“Clearly people would want to avoid putting their mouth directly on the fountain just to reduce risk,” Pettifor said.
But it’s unclear that this is the major risk on campus right now, she said.
For students who wished to participate in the tradition but did not want to wait in line, bottled “well water” was made available at multiple locations on campus.
UNC-CH students and employees on campus must get vaccinated or participate in weekly COVID-19 testing. The university reports that 87% of students have attested they are vaccinated.
The campus reported this fall’s first cluster of COVID-19 cases last week, and 146 students and employees have tested positive since August began, according to the UNC-CH dashboard.
This story was originally published August 18, 2021 at 6:51 PM.
