Exactly!! This is my point. It’s their new reality and in 20 years from now will say “remember when that virus was around going to college”
Every kid I know going to college in the fall is excited to go. They know what remote learning is from high school. They want to go meet new people in a new area that’s not high school…
RIT. That is true, but I am paying Full tuition dollars for online school. Last year I understood, but this year as well?
Thanks, and I understand re: not wanting to pay full boat for online school. Is RIT’s hybrid design/curriculum permanent? If not, maybe a gap year could make sense, or ultimately a transfer.
The speech therapist did not mandate the mask. The state (or district) did…
To me, whether masks are a big deal or not depends on whether they are saving significant numbers of lives and preventing long Covid or not. Vaccinated people who are under 65 and without serious disease, are almost completely protected from severe Covid and long Covid, no need for masks. Even the elderly and infirm are largely protected.
When the CDC reports the numbers of vaccinated people with breakthrough cases who have been hospitalized and/or died, these are people who simply tested positive for Covid. The CDC is not tracking the reason for their admission or cause of death. Hospital patients are routinely tested for Covid on admission. They could have a mild/asymptomatic case of Covid, but the reason for their admission is stroke, heart attack, cancer, liver disease, etc. So, the number of vaccinated people being hospitalized and/or dying with Covid is tiny, and the number being hospitalized or dying because of Covid is even smaller.
On a college campus, every person present has been eligible for vaccination for months. If the schools require proof of vaccination, and those who refuse to vaccinate are masked and tested, I do not see that masking everyone is necessary or even helpful. Individuals whose vaccine may not have been 100% effective for medical reasons can certainly still mask, but they can also rest assured that everyone else is either fully vaccinated or masked. In addition, immune compromised people may be eligible for boosters soon as another way to minimize their risk.
Masks are not a big deal if the risk/benefit ratio makes sense. Everyone in my family happily masked from March 2020 until now when indoors with people outside our cohort. But the risks of severe/long Covid are so low in vaccinated populations that I don’t see the benefit of masks in institutions where vaccination is required. There is harm to mask mandates. The students who strictly follow them are at a disadvantage as far meeting new friends and getting to know people. Everyone is disadvantaged in classroom discussions and relationships between professors and students are not the same. Litter and enormous amounts of trash result from masking.
I am glad that D21’s college has said that the vaccinated do not need masks, and unless our information about risk changes, I would protest any mask mandate at her school. I do think visitors should be required to either prove their vaccination or mask/remain outdoors.
if he was not 7 classes away from graduating, we might. He has only had one semester of “real college” , fall of his freshman year. He is graduating in 3 years, but prolonging it makes no sense, as I am afraid he might ever go back. Disappointing all around that he feels like he will never have fond college memories, but studying programming, he is resigned to just getting into the world and working. He is the kid without any friends (has ASD), and was hoping he would make some in college. I feel for him.
There is actually very little information on long haul COVID-19 after breakthrough infections. What little information there is (mainly anecdotes from physicians treating COVID-19 patients) is optimistic in this respect (i.e. the anecdotal reports suggest that long haul COVID-19 is rare in breakthrough infections), but it is best to consider that the certainty of any conclusion based on that is relatively low. Unfortunately, it seems that this topic is relatively neglected in COVID-19 research studies, although there is one (not yet complete) being done with VA data.
So, to be clear, if the vaccine does not get approved for 3-11 year olds any time soon, you think they should be masked indefinitely. Is that accurate? Do you care about kids and their development? Serious question.
Do you ever wonder why we’ve never masked kids during flu season?
how can you provide speech therapy to a 3 year old when you cannot see their mouth? At some point common sense needs to take over.
@ucbalumnus You are correct that we do not have research studies on whether vaccinated people get long Covid. This would be a difficult thing to study as there is no test for long Covid, and the symptoms are varied and potentially attributable to a variety of causes. People get post-viral syndromes such as chronic fatigue after all kinds of viruses, including the common cold and Epstein-Barr.
I am basing my assertion that it is very rare for vaccinated people to develop long Covid on the fact that it is rare for vaccinated people to become infected with Covid at all. I’m also basing it on reports such as the one you posted from NBC, and on the experiences of my husband (infectious disease doc) and his colleagues. They have seen thousands of long Covid patients, but have not yet found one who was fully vaccinated before their symptoms began.
I’m sure long Covid is possible as a rare outcome in vaccinated people, but we don’t mandate masks to prevent post-viral syndromes from other viruses. Anyone who is vaccinated, but concerned about long Covid (or chronic fatigue/inflammation from any virus) is free to wear a mask, of course.
The mantra of “ Follow the science” depends of what the specific objective of the organisation is.
If a College Dean wanted to 100% eliminate covid from their campus then asking the vaccinated to mask makes sense because they would hold a zero tolerance view of any infection at all.
If they wanted to just not have any cases severe enough for hospitalisation under their watch then they could have banned high risk student demographics from attending: the older non traditional aged students (over 55s), the obese, anyone which any pre - existing medical conditions ( including asthma). Then they could have had zero covid protocols at all for the admitted students, even in 2020 and let the virus rip and still have met the no hospitalisation target.
Because flu isn’t considered a deadly disease by the public. We can debate if that’s accurate or not.
If the follow facts are correct:
Why is it surprising that teachers who will be in a room with say 20-30 unvaccinated kids for hours at a time want the kids to wear masks? I personally question the logic that kids can’t spread Covid. Is that true for any airborne illness? Would you want to take that risk? Is it fair to ask teachers to take that risk?
I’m not opining either way. Just something to consider. Everyone comes at Covid from their own set of perspectives. That’s why we’ve hit a ceiling on vaccine uptake.
HUGE “if” on those “facts”.
And flu is definitely considered a deadly disease to millions of people. lol
They need to use those masks with the clear insert, if masks are required.
But if you ask the general public they’d most likely say it isn’t. Perception and public opinion matter. We never had death tallies on the TV for flu. If we did masking may have occurred decades ago because the flu vaccines aren’t very effective.
Probably because lots of people use “the flu” to describe any feverish illness, rather than limiting it to describe the actual flu.
True! But again that goes to public perception. For example, how many people know someone who died of the actual flu?
My kids pediatrician never recommended flu shots for them, because he didn’t think kids were at risk for poor outcomes, until my youngest was 7. That year a couple middle schoolers in our area died from the flu. Flu shots were recommended thereafter. Not scientific necessarily but again perception matters. It drives behavior. Good and bad.
So we’re going to mask kids for Covid because of the perception masking is actually doing something and ignoring that it harms the development of kids. Thanks for saying the quiet part out loud.
I understand what you are saying, but you have to understand that school personnel must follow school district/state/health dept policy. There is no choice.
Speech therapists, occupational therapists etc do the best they can under the rules that are put in place.
Our district was the only public school in the county to provide full day instruction, with masks. The alternative was to be remote like the other districts, and be maskless.
Do I want students under 12 to wear masks indefinitely? The answer is no, I do not.
I expect young, unvaccinated children to wear masks in school if doing so will prevent the spread of Covid. Kids can and do transmit this virus- we had to shut down an entire grade when a few kids got sick at a sleepover and came to school prior to getting symptoms. Masks help stop the spread.