Colleges in the 2021-2022 Academic Year & Coronavirus (Part 2)

Parents Forum
2937

And this guy wants to run for President? Can you imagine? He has no respect for the CDC and science, what will he do if he were to become President?

I guess the good news is that vaccinations are finally now up and the country finally hit the Biden goal of 70% of the country getting their first goal, but it is a month late and many cases late. We are about to have many deaths as a result of the Delta variant. Only 10 ICU beds left in the Austin area. Just awful. Common sense right now, wear masks to slow down the spread and get it under control in these areas. Too many seflish people running these states who donā€™t care about their residents but only care about politics and having egg on their face.

Bottom line is everyone has the choice. Itā€™s going to be get the vaccine or get covid because every unvaccinated person is most likely going to get covid if they donā€™t get the vaccine. And, for all the people arguing and debating about the break through cases, what people need to realize is that the vaccine was never meant to be 100%, the point of the vaccine is to keep people out of the hospital, dead or from having serious illness as a result of the virus. That said, the vaccine is doing itā€™s job. The number of breaktrhough cases leading to hospitalizations or death is very low, something like 6,000 only. When you think of the hundreds of millions of vaccinated people, 6k is next to nothing. In fact less than 0.004% of fully vaccinated people had a breakthrough case that led to hospitalization and less than 0.001% of fully vaccinated people died from a breakthrough Covid-19 case. Who wouldnā€™t take those odds over not getting vaccinated? People need to focus on these numbers, not the number of breakthrough cases. Itā€™s not different when you think about how when we cut ourselves and put a bandaid on. The bandaid may temporarily stop the bleeding, but not completely. The minute we take the bandaid off the bleeding may start right up, but it does slow it down. The vaccine same idea, it protects us, but doesnā€™t stop the virus completely from someone getting it.

@sdl0625 I donā€™t know of any schools that still have online classes. I know USC has given some students an option and that two of my kids colleges have some online classes but in one case the classes have been moving from remote to in person and more so as the vaccine has now been mandated to the entire university including staff when before it was just those living on campus, and my other kid the classes that are online are large freshman classes that are often always online. However, parents have been complaining about that for months. That school has no vaccine requirement at all and considering the state, they have no business going to online classes because they absolutely should be mandating or at least encouraging vaccine and a mask mandate but again, thatā€™s what happens when you have people in government that donā€™t care about the greater good.

1 Like
2938

ā€œSeeing is believingā€ ā€“ seeing a serious case of COVID-19 among people close to you may be the strongest motivator if you were not already vaccinated.

Presuming you mean among colleges that did not have online / distance offerings before COVID-19. Although there probably still are some that did not have any before COVID-19 but still have some this fall.

2939

Yes re colleges and oops I see I had a typo in my comment about the 70% which was meant to say ā€œ70% of the country getting their first doseā€ not ā€œgoalā€.

Need to keep those vaccines coming. Iā€™m afraid to see what the death toll is going to start showing and it makes me highly nervous that I will be bringing my daughter to Austin this weekend. Talk about the worst possible weekend to be going to Texas. We are not taking things lightly at all. Iā€™m just glad sheā€™s living in an apartment this year and know we have to be super careful, because I am not getting a breakthrough covid case there to bring back to my mother who has lung cancer and is a kidney transplant recipient here. Thank god her dr informed us last week that she at least has high antibodies from her vaccine, but still not taking any chances.

For anyone out there reading this, if youā€™re not vaccinated by now, you have no excuse. You know the FDA is going to approve it. They just are making sure all the iā€™s are dotted and tā€™s crossed. Millions upon millions of doses have been given successfully. This drug has probably even been tested way more than any other drug going through the FDA approval. So, if you have a loved one not vaccinated, tell them itā€™s time to do so before itā€™s too late!!

2 Likes
2940

Iā€™m at a state U in a red state where vax is not mandatory and likely wonā€™t be. However, as things change in response to the delta variant (and whatever comes next), Iā€™m starting to get the sense that students and parents are in for some whiplash, and that we need to stop advertising the 21-22 school year like itā€™s going to be back to normal.

The response Iā€™m seeing to ā€œeveryone back into the pool!ā€ among faculty, staff, and grad students is pretty darn tepid, and Iā€™m already seeing:

  • faculty ignoring the ā€œyou must meet in-person with students whether or not theyā€™re vaxed, also donā€™t ask people about their vax statusā€ directives

  • faculty and supervisory staff responding with ā€œgot your backā€ when it comes to people deciding that in fact they donā€™t want to come back to the buildings or teach in-person, regardless of admin directives (my bosses surprised me by going even further than Iā€™d asked; I now have no immediate plan to return in person)

  • fac and staff looking for and taking other (remote) jobs rather than going back into buildings full of students, most of whom are likely to be unvaccinated.

My building was supposed to go back to normal today. Iā€™m not there, and my understanding is itā€™s pretty quiet there. Even over the summer, I was surprised to see how abandoned the place was and how cautious people were being about masks, meetings, etc. ā€¦aaand I just got word that a colleague who runs a center, has been there seven years and done a lot of heavy lifting in her superbusy department, is abruptly gone as of the ā€œreturn to campusā€ date, sheā€™s looking for people to take her students. Sounds like she was given an ultimatum.

This is much different from last August, when there was fear and grumbling but, for the most part, compliance and return to classroom/lab for those who were assigned. A major concern: faculty and staff with young children and immunocompromised people at home, or preexisting conditions. Theyā€™re looking at the situation and the graphs and saying, ā€œAbsolutely not.ā€ The level of exhaustion and lack of reward for going through what we did last year to keep the place going are not helping ā€“ huge work, huge stress, no raises, and the institution comes out doing fine but the people are shredded. And, frankly, the institutionā€™s commitment and ability to keep its workers safe wereā€¦not great. Thereā€™s not a lot of motivation left for taking one for the team. Thereā€™s significant worry all over academia, just like everywhere else, about employee retention, and my guess is that as Covid cases spike in September weā€™re going to see rapid reversion to zoom if only because some critical mass of instructors and department chairs will refuse to go with the in-person program.

Personally, I think students should be prepared for zoom by mid-semester, and possibly for early dorm-emptying, depending on how sick the kids wind up as this rips through the dorms, particularly in red states. (My kid, whoā€™s vaxed, will be in a dorm, and will be antigen-self-testing twice a week. I just ordered the crate of test cards. I still have to figure out a plan for if/when she tests positive, because god knows isolation wasnā€™t handled well last year, and I donā€™t expect things to be significantly better this year. If sheā€™s positive, though, itā€™d be good for both her and her roommate to know.) Iā€™m guessing that where this happens, universities will go on begging students to no effect to get vaxed, and will also go on holding mass social events for those who want to attend, thus divorcing the social aspect of college from the academic. Which would also make staying in the dorm v. bailing ā€œyour choiceā€. My guess is that this conversation will start leaking out over the next few weeks, by which time kids will already be at school with expectations. But the direct confrontation between admin and the rest of the university employees is just starting to happen, and that wrestling will take some weeks, I suspect, before something is negotiated.

I would also not be surprised to see a more potent variant emerge by spring as vax rates increase globally.

In the end, universities are staffed by highly educated people who now have plenty of experience with remote work and virus caution, and the stakes are a lot clearer to many than they were last summer. Iā€™m prepping my fall courses for zoom, and have gone back to meeting with my grad student over zoom. Iā€™d hoped to get away with going in to teach wearing a duckbill N95, but I donā€™t see a reason to screw around with this variant. If given an ultimatum, Iā€™d leave too.

1 Like
2941

Iā€™m gripped by your detailed prediction and hope it does not go as sadly anticipated. Your description is compelling and reflects much anxiety and sadness which is hard to read but Iā€™m glad you shared your thoughts and feelings.

Selfishly, Iā€™m also finding myself even more grateful that my Sā€™s OOS school is requiring vax of all staff, students and professors. And today they also emailed to share that indoor mask wearing will also resume so as to protect in classroom teaching.

I wish all schools would require vaccinations to those who are able to get them. It seems like a must have to me.

But I live in Florida and I know colleges and schools here are doomed to whatever people are willing to do since there will be no mandates anywhere in the ā€œsunshineā€ state where Covid denial is rampant.

2942

Would any of that (switch to online / distance education and/or dorm emptying) actually occur in colleges where there is strong political opposition to COVID-19 mitigation (vaccination, masks, etc.)? Some vaccination refusers may be about to learn the hard way when they ā€œwinā€ one of the bigger COVID-19 lottery prizesā€¦

1 Like
2943

Well, we did last year. Itā€™s also harder in red-state locations that arenā€™t near cities to replace instructors ā€“ the labor pool just isnā€™t here, and if kids are mad about paying for zoom school, wait till their sophomore courses are taught by seniors who did well.

Iā€™m guessing mask mandates will make their way in belatedly, but given how contagious delta is and how unenforceable the mandate actually would be, itā€™ll come down to whether or not thereā€™s enough instructional and other staff showing up to go on in person. I wouldnā€™t be surprised if the shift went ā€œokay, classes over 50 are zoom-onlyā€, and then there was just a lot of looking the other way when instructors of smaller classes took them online.

2944

Itā€™s the only way to go. I think thereā€™s going to be a massive difference between the two kinds of college ā€“ kids at mask/vax schools will actually have college, kids at places like mine will have some weird kind of shambles.

2 Likes
2945

However, in March 2020, political opposition against COVID-19 mitigation was nowhere near as hardened as it is now. I would not be surprised if colleges and states where there is strong opposition to COVID-19 mitigation become experiments of what some suggest is the fastest way to get through the pandemic: Let It Rip - by Andrew Sullivan - The Weekly Dish

1 Like
2946

Iā€™m sorry, @bennty . You sound drained and unappreciated.

In my opinion, N95 masks work. I base this on the fact that my husband has been treating Covid patients in five different hospitals for 16 months without getting Covid. He was vaccinated in January. When the FDA approves the vaccine for general use, he will likely get a third dose (any one can go to their doctor and ask for a dose once it is fully approved). I know he ā€œsigned upā€ for this by choosing a career in infectious disease, but it is possible to stay safe through masking and vaccines. However, I donā€™t know what the answer is if your institution wonā€™t support these measures :pensive: .

Iā€™m not sure I understand this comment that you made:

I would also not be surprised to see a more potent variant emerge by spring as vax rates increase globally.

There is no reason other than pure chance for the virus to become more dangerous to humans. It is not under any evolutionary pressure to kill its victims or to make them sicker. In fact, it is under evolutionary pressure towards being more mild or moderate. If a virus makes its victims too sick to go out, that inhibits its ability to spread, therefore sending it towards extinction. If a virus kills its victims very fast, then it canā€™t survive because it canā€™t spread.

It is true that SARS-CoV-2 is under evolutionary pressure to evade both our natural immune systems, and vaccine induced immunity. Every virus is under the former, and Covid is under some of the latter also. We donā€™t know for sure yet, but it is likely that most vaccinated people neutralize the virus completely and fast enough so that very few mutated viral particles survive and there isnā€™t time to spread them. Then, the virus doesnā€™t have much chance to escape vaccine induced immunity, and variants are far more likely to arise in the unvaccinated, especially those who are immune compromised, and/or carry a high viral load for a long time.

However, scientists are confident that they can develop boosters to continue to cover emerging variants if the current vaccines are not a good enough match. In fact, they are working on a universal coronavirus vaccine which would cover whatever variant coronaviruses can throw at us.

If you are fully vaccinated and you only interact with people who are vaccinated, masked, or both when inside, I really think you can be an in person professor with very little worry about Covid.

7 Likes
2947

This is true. Weā€™re also dealing with various other red-agenda attacks ā€“ free speech, critical race theory (which makes me want to do that hysterical laughing thing ā€“ imagine, the return of critical anything theory from the early 90s), librul cult programming, you name it. End of day, though, if the workers wonā€™t show but will teach online, and are willing to walk away or sue if given ultimata, I donā€™t know what else they can do. Also bad if unvaxed kids are bad sick all over the dorms ā€“ I think theyā€™ll shut down rather than risk the liability.

Iā€™m sure some angry MAGA mom group will make a big media fuss as things shift to online, and thereā€™ll be plenty of fury and death threats sent to professors, but end of day these are mostly people with options in an era with a lot of online work available, and non-tenure-track instructional faculty shoulder most of the instructional load for not much money or stability. I donā€™t envy the college presidents.

2948

But is there much of this type of evolutionary pressure when it already spreads easily before symptoms start?

Evasion of prior immunity from either natural infection or vaccination is constrained by needing the spike protein to be able to dock to the human ACE2 or other receptor. There are many of ways to mutate away from prior immunity, but only some of them maintain similar ability to dock to ACE2. Note that the variant of concern that is most evasive of prior immunity, B.1.351 / Beta, appears to have lost to B.1.1.7 / Alpha and later B.1.617.2 / Delta due to the latter two variantsā€™ increased transmissibility.

2949

I agree (unless more robust variants emerge). Iā€™ll be going in for some dental work next week, for instance, and I feel pretty good about that. Unfortunately, in the no-mask-no-vax places, itā€™s a bit of a mess.

The emerging-variant thing: this is pretty interesting, if I can dork out for a minute. If you look at data on the drop in immune response with delta, comparing Pfizer, AZ, and infection-acquired immunity, itā€™s pretty plain that delta is close to knocking through the vaccine wall. The response is holding, but barely. Coronavirus research isnā€™t new, exactly, but itā€™s not got the kind of research peat under it that, say, flu does. My guess (100% a guess) is that we actually donā€™t understand the spike/receptor biophysics well enough to understand well, yet, what further mutations might make for a supersticky virus, and how likely those mutations might be. Then thereā€™s a lot of stuff I donā€™t understand about the disquieting T-cell defeat that got some JAMA/NEJM time last year ā€“ I donā€™t know where this can go, but I assume that further mutations can make it a bigger story.

While itā€™s true that a successful virus is not a MERS-type killer, a vax-defeater that didnā€™t kill most victims would still have plenty of wood to burn through, including people whoā€™d recovered from Alpha. As for the time to evolve/escape in the vaxed, the studies Iā€™ve seen so far show a pretty healthy viral load in the vaxed who show up ill; that drops off much faster than it does in the unvaxed, but the virus has a good few days to work its magic, looks like. The incubation time looks to be shorter, but again, during that time, I donā€™t see why you wouldnā€™t have spread of whatever niftiness is evolving within the vaxed person. Which is part of why the masks are important and of course people still arenā€™t wearing them, just wandering around explaining that theyā€™re vaxed so they donā€™t have to. Cheers, Rochelle.

3 Likes
2950

There is no evolutionary pressure on the virus to become more virulent (makes victims sicker). A disease that spreads through diarrhea might be under pressure to give victims worse diarrhea if that helped spread. But Covid spreads through breathing (enhanced by shouting, singing, talking). It may be under pressure to be asymptomatic, or at least keep people feeling relatively okay so they talk to lots of other people.

You can imagine that SARS-CoV-2 is under evolutionary pressure to make people spit their infected droplets on as many others as possible. Each time it replicates, some mistakes happen in its RNA. If a mistake happens that causes the infected person to get a very sore throat, or become very weak, or have a heart attack, that change is unlikely to get passed to others. OTOH, if a mistake were to happen that caused people to flock to crowded, unventilated indoor spaces and perform opera, that mutation would likely be passed on and might become the new variant. After the opera performances, it might randomly kill people, but it wouldnā€™t be under any evolutionary pressure to do so. Nor would vaccination pressure a virus to become more virulent.

The only favored variation is one that makes it more transmissible. Does that make sense?

1 Like
2951

Oh, and thank you. I am, though itā€™s that usual thing ā€“ Iā€™ve had it much easier than a lot of people. So many with young kids are just on the verge of giving up altogether, and Iā€™ve seen so much anger flaring over disrespect and expectations over the last few months. Nobody seems inclined to push anyone to do anything extra where I am ā€“ I think thereā€™s general recognition of how worn people are. Itā€™ll take a while to convalesce, in that sense.

So much really is a matter of leadership ā€“ if people had a genuine sense that we were all in it together, all pulling together and looking out for each other, thereā€™d be much more goodwill at this point, and fewer people with one foot out the door. Itā€™s been left to lower-ranking people to look out for each other as best they can, and I really am appreciative of that, but we definitely could be doing this better. There are also schools all over starting the year with a raft of new administrators who donā€™t really know the place yet; theyā€™ve also been peace-out since early last spring, seems like. My sense is that a lot of those jobs have turned into positions you canā€™t really lead from, so when an emergency arrives, itā€™s a monumentally hard job.

4 Likes
2952

@bennty said:

Which is part of why the masks are important and of course people still arenā€™t wearing them, just wandering around explaining that theyā€™re vaxed so they donā€™t have to.

Ugh. Iā€™m sorry. I live outside NYC, and most vaccinated people here never stopped masking indoors, except in our own houses, or when with small numbers of vaccinated friends. Iā€™m not worried about hospitalization or death for us vaccinated people under 65, but I am worried about vaccinated over 65ā€™s, long Covid, people for whom the vaccine didnā€™t work due to immune issues, and under 12ā€™s.

1 Like
2953

If what is being offered is another year of zoom college, you may as well shut down now. It may work okay for professors, but the customers arenā€™t interested in buying that service.

9 Likes
2954

Iā€™m glad you all tested negative!!! I asked when the 2nd doses were, as the Israeli study showed diminished protection 6 months after the 2nd dose. Yes, breakthroughs can occur at any point, but increased markedly after the 6-month point. What has never been shown and is never discussed at all the WH covid briefings (I wish a reporter would ask!!!) or in governorā€™s covid press conferences or even on the network talk shows is how long long covid happens with breakthroughs. It DOES happen (anecdotally). All of the teachers that were vaccinated early on ā€“ what is the school year going to look like in the Delta world with optional masks, no social distancing, still inadequate ventilation/filtration, no surveillance testing, etc. The inconsistent masking wonā€™t be enough to combat Delta, and the inadequate HVAC will be even more inadequate. Will the CDC contact tracing rules be changed to reflect the more-transmissible Delta? Social distancing?

2955

Will students at your school have the option to take a gap semester/year if all their classes are remote (and get their money back should that happen during the semester)?

1 Like
2956

Northeastern and Boston Universities are now in alignment: all students, faculty and staff must show proof of vaccination. Also all members of the communities on campus must submit to weekly COVID testing. The testing requirement will be reviewed on a monthly basis depending on conditions at the time. When this hit social media the number of commenters convinced that it was financial suicide for the schools was amazing. ā€œWhat are they going to do when no one shows up?ā€ etc. The antivaxxers are so convinced that their position is the majority, even in Massachusetts.

And Boston College refusing religious exemptions for Catholic students is a whole different can of worms.

5 Likes