I agree. But what counts as a problem? If they find an asymptomatic case, is that a problem if everyone is vaccinated and the chance of hospitalization is close to zero? I thought we were moving towards accepting mild Covid as something that will be with us and the point of the vaccines was to keep people from dying.
Going to class with a mask on is a problem. It just is. Professors canât see the kidsâ faces or hear them. Communication is stunted wearing masks when kids are trying to get to know each other. Besides, itâs not just random homerdog saying to take masks off. The CDC, Fauci, President BidenâŠall said that, if youâre vaccinated, you do not need to wear a mask.
I worked in our middle school this spring. Got to know all of the kids while we wore masks. Iâm telling you that it IS harder to connect when your face is all covered. When it got warmer and we had some classes outside without masks, I feel like I made leaps and bounds within a couple of days communicating with the kids because we could see each othersâ faces. Iâm kind of tired of the âputting a mask on is no big dealâ. Maybe itâs not a BIG deal but itâs not a small thing either and, again, the authorities have always said that, if you are vaccinated, you donât have to wear a mask. We are trying to minimize serious cases. The vaccine was never meant to wipe out Covid but now it seems thatâs what we are shooting for with a continued mask mandate?
Fauci said last night that, in places where thereâs low vaccination rates and pockets of Covid, a mask mandate might be the way to go. Heâs not talking about college campuses where 90+ percent are vaccinated. See below
@homerdog Iâm not a doctor, nor do I play one on television. All I can say is that youâll need to play by the rules your kidsâ schools put in place. Thereâs nothing you can do about it. Sit back, relax, and see what happens. It is 100% out of your control. They donât care about parents calling to voice their opinions. They have a job to do, and thatâs that.
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The linked article on COVID in Provincetown shows that the increased exposure due to greater interactions with others (tourists in Provincetownâs case) will increase the risk of infection even among the vaccinated population. If youâre vaccinated and youâre mostly with others who are also vaccinated, your risk of infection is very very low, because youâre unlikely to be exposed in the first place. However, when the risk of exposure increases significantly, your risk of infection also increases significantly, albeit from a very low base rate. Colleges where students and staff have higher degree of unavoidable exposure to surrounding communities have higher risk of an outbreak than those with lower degree of exposure to surrounding communities, even if their vaccination rates among students and staff are about the same.
How do we know that? If so, why are people who are vaccinated, test positive but show no symptoms being isolated? Olympians, those trying to return from overseas? I see no exceptions for vaccinated/asymptomatic people to get to compete, to get readmitted to the US (or into another company). No one, not the drug companies, not the CDC, not Fauci are saying they arenât spreading virus so let them be/let them in, stop testing them all the time. Nope, they are subject to the same rules of testing and isolating if they test positive.
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Well, I certainly donât think the colleges will change anything because of my opinions but I do reach out and ask a lot of questions and both schools are very very open about their reasoning for Covid rules. I reached out to Colgate when they were originally not going to require vaccinations and got a very long, detailed and friendly email back four hours later on a Sunday from the dean I contacted. Especially at small colleges, they hear a lot from parents and kind of need to take them seriously with just 2000 kids on campus and pricey tuition. At the very least, parents and students should get the background on why decisions were being made and, in the case of Covid, where the college is getting its data from to support the decisions.
They are isolating asymptomatic cases because they are being UBER conservative. Fauci or the CDC have never suggested isolating asymptomatic, vaccinated cases.
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Exactly. If the students at these universities do not want to wear masks, then it is their responsibility to rise up together to change the policy.
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What does the amount you pay have anything to do with anything?
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I didnât really mean it like that. I just meant that expensive LACs say they provide excellent personal experiences. You all can go on about how itâs up to the students to make change but Iâm pretty sure that parents and alumni making noise can make a difference.
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Well, students can choose to take a gap year, and many last year did. Some of those who stuck with it, are transferring schools because their school didnât do a good job of managing covid (whatever that means to that specific student). There are consequences to the decisions that schools make.
IMO a big issue no one is talking about is that many schools are not offering a remote option for classes/labsâŠhow are those quarantined or isolated for ten days to two weeks going to keep up with their classes? Quite an issue for anyone, especially those on a quarter system. Many schools have also said you have to leave campus if quarantined/isolated, which will make keeping up that much more difficult.
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Schools have always isolated students with an outbreak of any contagious disease. My daughter tested positive for flu (twice) and the health center sent an email to her professors saying she was not to be on campus. There was no indication on the seriousness of her case, whether sheâd had a flu shot, etc. She was responsible for isolating herself. It was unlikely sheâd die from the flu and unlikely other college aged students would either. It was likely many students and professors had had flu shots so they werenât in danger of much more than feeling bad from the symptoms. Still, the school treated her as if she had a contagious disease, which she did.
Same with the few kids Iâve know who have had chickenpox or measles. No school allowed. Since most kids at the schools had been vaccinated (as had those who came down with the diseases), those infected posed very little danger of infecting others, but no exception was made and they had to stay isolated until the illness ran its course.
We donât know how good the vaccine will be about controlling covid if all the protocols that help last year are removed, like masks, hand washing, constant cleaning and scrubbing. The testing last year was on people who were wandering thru society, going to work and stores, but all very limited and controlled because that was society in 2020 when the testing was happening. Everyone had masks on, everyone was 6â apart, no one was hugging or shaking hands. Now those who are vaccinated are going to MLB with 40,000 people in the stands, picking up baggage from baggage claim with 1000 of their new friends and plane mates grabbing and touching things and having masks hanging off their noses. Restaurants are nudging tables a little closer, stores no longer enforce the 6â rule or wiping the counter between every customer.
We just donât know yet.
And I drove by a lot of grade schools last year with all the kids playing on the playgrounds, wearing masks. Kids donât care. My sister, a teacher, LOVES that they have to sit in their desks, not share food or drinks, not always touching each other. She was healthier last year and so were her students not just from covid but from colds, flu, pink eye and all the other germs around a school.
We do know vaccines work because cases across the country have plummeted in relation to the percent vaccinated in each state. No other explanation.
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Tell me about it.
As of now, all visitors and unvaccinated students, faculty and staff must wear masks. They must also have surveillance testing done by Cornell - not visitors obviously. Otherwise no masking required, normal social distancing, etc. It dows appear that some close quarters areas indoors like housing may require all to wear masks at this time but maybe thatâs if there are higher areas of students unvaccinated. Not sure. And of course thereâs a disclaimer that this can change based on the variant etc. They are still seeing some positive cases - 2 in the last week but obviously thatâs from unvaccinated people since theyâre the only ones now needing to test. Itâs also a very small population that is unvaccinated. Mainly staff level employees. Students ard faculty arenât the ones testing positive.
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IMO, schools are doing this on purpose to force students to be vaccinated in states where they arenât allowed to mandate the vaccine.
Purdue just sent a letter to parents spelling out all the issues for students not vaccinated on campus. They are saying that all students need a quarantine/isolation plan that they are fully responsible for paying/arranging. Vaccinated students donât need to isolate unless they are symptomatic. Unvaccinated students will be forced to isolate for 14 days. If anyone tries to skirt the rules, itâs probation and then expulsion. Professors are not required to provide an online option so itâs going to be like years past where if you got sick, you needed to figure out a way to make up the work or take a medical leave.
At this point, students in a university setting need to be vaccinated. The only exemptions should be for true medical reasons.
All bets are off if we end up not being protected from future variants.
Iâm also in the camp that masking up is no big deal. My D wore a mask for the entire year - first at school and then at work. Parents calling a school to complain about their public health decisions seems totally inappropriate. Donât like it, send your kid somewhere else.
So, if a student at Purdue did the right thing and got vaccinated but catches a symptomatic case,they are still âpunishedâ because thereâs no remote option for class? I canât imagine that going over well.
Adding - are they testing vaccinated students on a regular basis?
Masking in college is different than masking little kids. Although I am not happy about wearing a mask. My college schedule does not have me in a mask 8 hours straight. College kids have many breaks in their day. We get to leave class and take our mask off, socialize, get fresh air, eat and then maybe a few hours later attend the next class.
Kids are just learning how to socialize, read, write, and communicate. Itâs hard for them and harming them emotionally. My little cousin (3) had to go to speech therapy and the therapist required the mask to be wornâŠhow ridiculous is that?? In my cousinâs class, 8 other kids were in therapy! This is insane.
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The cases plummeted in March, April, May as vaccinations started to reach the general public, but masks and 6â rules and WFH and other precautions were still being enforced at that time. Colleges (and other schools) were still doing most classes online or requiring masks and distancing. Most of the restrictions were not lifted until late May or June. Now weâre seeing some rise in cases.
If colleges want to require masks, I see it as âbelts and suspenders,â double protection against those pants falling down.
Youâre lucky your kids picked schools where masks arenât required because that seems to be very important to you. If your son travels to a campus where they are required, heâll have to wear one except when competing. Tufts is in a city, with a lot of âstrangersâ coming and going from campus whereas your kids are at campuses that are more isolated with the same people coming and going every day, and not that many of them. Tufts is making the choices it feels necessary to stay open for businesses.
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This is really no different than kids who get mono and are out of class for weeks also. They have to deal with it. Work with their professors and figure out the material. My daughterâs roommate had mono freshman year and left school for about a month. They had no remote option then. Now at least most of these kids can find the videos from last year of their courses.
But itâs a fluid situation and ultimately things can also change but most places donât have remote options anyway. My high school isnât offering one either. Also, if everyone is vaccinated then there shouldnât be any (or very few) breakthrough cases especially in more rural college campuses.
At the end of the day they have made it clear over and over that if you go to an area that is highly unvaccinated you should wear a mask even if youâre vaccinated. But as the variant swirls around to more places everywhere else and more vaccinated people have breakthrough cases then we will all need to wear it and most likely due to the unvaccinated not wearing theirs. Iâm fine wearing mine if thatâs what it takes to get these unvaccinated people to wear theirs since most of them canât be trusted to do so otherwise which is why we still are in this mess in the first place! Theyâre the ones who should always be wearing their masks out and we know theyâre not. If those selfish people were following cdc guidelines then the Delta variant wouldnât be our biggest threat right now.
Here are the current details, subject to change if the situation changes before the school year starts. And no, they are not testing vaccinated students.
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