We are at the highest levels it’s ever been, with hospital after hospital becoming completely overwhelmed, and lots of schools are bringing back MORE students than they did in the fall in communities that are having current mega outbreaks.
I assume they think students won’t get that sick and it’s worth the risk? They came up with elaborate spring covid plans based on the successes of the fall and don’t want to pull the plug? Pressure from parents? I don’t know. It’s going to be harder to keep the numbers low now than it was in the fall. Some schools are headed back now / soon.
You ask interesting questions but I don’t think any college is assuming their professors are getting the vaccine by end of january in new england. My 90 yr old parent in assisted living in MA just received a first dose of Pfizer/BioNTech on 12/28. Other than front line covid health care providers and now 1/11: first responders, it is going to vulnerable elders in long term care only.
I agree. I work in the lab and does a lot of the single testing for covid19 and flu A/B strain and one combo test for covid19/fluAB/RSV and have not seen any flu positive since Sept 2020. Covid19 positive cases on the other hand are rampant. Half of our hospital population have the virus. Most require convalescent plasma transfusion for treatment and because the Red Cross cannot keep up with the demand, some patients are already kept on comfort care after several days of waiting. Let me tell you, the codes overhead day in and day out is just so surreal. We already have one death of a 4 year old in our county. And yesterday I tested another 4 year old and came up positive. As a parent, I am nervous sending my kids back to campus - Colgate and RIT. Monroe County where RIT is has very high positivity rates.
On an added note, because of where my husband, my two brothers and I work (hospital), we were able to get the first dose of the Moderna vaccine a few days before Christmas. Our hospital offered walk-ins for all employees regardless of whether one belongs to the top tier group of people(frontliners) or to the second tier group. Our area first responders, nursing home workers and some residents have been getting them too. I am glad NY is vent on fighting this virus head on.
Where I work, if a patient walks in our ER, its mandatory to test them for flu and covid19. Like I mentioned here, since Sept 2020 I have not seen any positive flu results but we have a high number of positive results for covid19. We have a point of care testing for both the covid19 and flu and also a more sensitive combo test for covid19/flu/rsv.
I wish that things were going as smoothly in NYC as they seem to be wherever you are in NY State. My mother and my aunt are both in nursing homes here, and neither of them, nor any of the staff, have received the vaccine. The only people I know who have are doctors who practice at hospitals. It’s a mess.
@twoinanddone - so you are saying the only way covid is present in a college town is the students? Could not disagree more. Saint Joseph county, where Notre Dame is located, is still running a 19% positive test rate (unique individuals) and the student body left November 20.
I have maintained for quite some time that with colleges, the jury is still out. Is it the students infecting the local area or vice versa.
NOTE: I may have misinterpreted your original post. I think you are saying colleges will not have covid if all the students are tested prior to or upon arrival. My point above still holds, I think the surrounding community will bring the virus to campus through one of several means - students off campus, staff, students shopping off campus, food deliveries, etc.
We are from Oneida County. Our hospital system is one of the 10 vaccine hubs designated by NYS. Some of the nursing homes but not all their respective residents have gotten some of the vaccine. Today is the public rollout for the mass vaccination program within the radius of coverage as assigned by the state. Let us hope your mom and aunt will get them this week.
Today also is the first week of back to school for most district schools. Our school district will be doing fully remote this week and will resume the hybrid classes next week. Of course everything is fluid. Our weekly positivity rate ending 12/30 is 9.8%. So yeah this virus spread is not slowing down.
They are bringing back K-3 kids tomorrow at H’s school. Our positivity rate was 19.1% today. I am not excited, especially as I hear of more large outbreaks around the region.
I can’t remember if this study was brought up here at the time but it compared local community covid rates between schools that had “ early” and “late”spring breaks. The late spring breaks occurred after the pandemic caused the mass exit of most students. They found that the towns with the early spring breaks had higher infection rates with the conclusion being that the students brought it back from their travels from the typical spring break party destinations
This was before the colleges had put it place the infection control measures that many have now so this might not now be as applicable.
My comments were about FLU, not covid, being brought back to campus by the students. Flu is down in most areas of the country by 98%, and the news article I was referring to was about international travel not being open to spread the flu around the world. There is little flu in the US this year so little for college students to be transporting back to campus. Covid is absolutely available to transfer back to campus. Testing a student 3-5 days before traveling back to campus isn’t going to prevent the virus traveling with the returning students.
Most college students, especially at large schools, are part of the community, not in a college bubble. If they leave and bring covid back, it will be in the community. In Boulder, 3/4 of the students live off campus, in the community. They shop and eat and work out in the same stores, restaurants, and parks as ‘regular’ residents of Boulder (even more since many of the campus facilities are closed). The city asked the students not to return to Boulder until in person classes resume, but it has no authority to enforce that because the students have leases and are residents of the city. Today the county went from Level Red to Orange, so bars, restaurants, gyms, etc. are reopening (limited) to the public and the students are the public, and they are ‘going home’ to their houses and apartments in Boulder.
The opposite of South Bend, Colorado numbers in college towns (and in fact all places) have gone down since Thanksgiving, thus the moving to Orange Level and the reopenings.
UChicago starts back on Monday 1/11. Remote courses for the first week, similar to autumn quarter. No plans at this point to change or alter spring break - but I will learn more at a webinar next week - and so far they have been able to preserve the academic calendar with minimal tweaks that were already in the works to accommodate a new academic calendar starting next year. They had excellent fall numbers so we don’t anticipate many changes except for hopefully a few more common areas opened up for the students. It’s not quite the same as a normal year but still pretty “normal,” all things considered, and I really appreciated the range of options that everyone had, including the option to return to campus or have in-person instruction (if you could get that section! High demand!). The approach by the epidemiology team was basically to figure out how to work around Covid so that everyone could get back to doing what they love: research, teaching, and learning. They learned a lot from dealing with the virus on the south side this past spring and used that experience to form their Covid policies.
I’ve been away from the thread for some time so haven’t been keeping up. Please forgive me if repeat any previous comments.
DD and DS had a good fall semester at Wake Forest. They avoided Covid-19, but DS was exposed by a classmate and spent two weeks in isolation at one of two hotels rented by the school. He was tested four times before release.
Cases rose in the last few weeks of school, primarily from attendance at off campus bars and parties. Gatherings and campus events were cancelled or severely limited as a result for the last three or four weeks of the semester. Total Covid cases were over 600 for the semester among faculty, staff, and students. I don’t know how many were athletes. There was an article in a local paper that testing for the football team alone was $75,000 per week. There’s no mention yet of refinements to WFU’s Covid-19 plan. Dr. Chris Ohl of the WFU Medical School regularly updates familes on protocol and results.
Both kids had a good academic and social experience and were happy to be on campus instead of home. We were glad that they were able to go and are generally pleased with the support given students by the school.
They return on January 25th for Spring semester. DS is totally online, DD has a blended schedule since she is a senior and most of her classes are very small.
Amherst students got an email yesterday about the move-in process for spring.
Move-in will be staggered from Thursday, February 11, to Sunday, February 14, and the day of move-in depends on your dorm. They will also have shuttles running between the Boston Airport/Hartford Airport and the college throughout these days.
There will be pre-arrival testing, but students will still be subject to quarantine procedures, as they do not believe the results of the pre-arrival tests will have a turnaround time of less than the 72 hours required by the state for quarantine exemption.
The first week on-campus will consist of a graduated quarantine process for all students, and during that time, all classes will be remote. Students will first report to the testing center, once on-campus, then will go straight to their rooms until their first test comes back negative (they are still expecting on-campus testing to have a turnaround of less than 24 hours). Positive-testing students will be moved into isolation housing. Students will not be able to access dining facilities for the first 24 hours; meals and snacks will be available in the room, and all rooms will be equipped with refrigerators and microwaves. Students who, for some reason, cannot get a pre-arrival test (I believe this applies to international students, but I could be wrong) will go straight to isolation housing until their first test comes back negative, at which time they can move into their dorm rooms.
After each student gets their first negative test, they can leave their rooms to pick up food and can take walks alone, but they cannot gather in groups. Once a student receives their third consecutive negative test, the quarantine period will be lifted, and they can connect in small groups while masked and physically distanced.
D’s school (Susquehanna) is staggering return dates. Seniors go first, the first week of Feb. D is a junior and will be going back Feb 14. The following week are freshman and sophomores. They have hired a testing firm, but will be doing rapid tests once students are back on campus. Not crazy about that because they don’t have a ton of space for quarantining, so what happens if there’s a high percentage of positives? Also, rapid tests aren’t as accurate. They are prorating r&b fees.
S’s school (Quinnipiac) is going back as planned. All students must test prior to heading back. They are also staggering returns beginning January 19. His roommate just told him he is likely taking a semester off because he can’t handle the online classes. That seems to be a popular opinion amongst his friends (S struggled once his classes went online in October). S is waiting to see if his classes are going to be in person or not. Back when he registered, they were all in person. Many students are not returning to campus, choosing to stay home and work online, but all students do have to pay r&b. Horrible.