Masks with a respirator valve aren’t meant for use in a pandemic. The other masks, especially the multi-layer ones, all protect others reasonably well. To protect oneself, one needs a better quality mask (a surgical style mask at the minimum).
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Just trying to understand, you are happy to have your kid attend in person classes at the same school with your work colleagues, but you are unwilling to offer the same in person class yourself, though you won’t tell your students hat until class begins? Data from those schools that held in person classes last year indicated classrooms were not a significant source of infection. Parties and frat houses were.
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1% who are exposed to the Delta variant are expected to catch Covid, or 1% of all unvaccinated? Big difference there! ETA: risk of spread will obviously be higher in congregate settings. That’s why colleges and universities have re-instituted indoor masking, despite many of them also requiring vaccination.
Northeastern announced a month ago go that there would be weekly mandated testing for everyone. This was before the Delta variant became a concern. They got a lot of criticism for that mandate, mostly from people who were not members of the Northeastern community.
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The CDC’s internal recommendation was universal indoor masking regardless of vaccine status. That was not the public message, which was scaled down to include indoor masking only in areas of “high transmissibility.” So the public recommendation was actually less cautious than the CDC’s own internal recommendation.
But was that data from schools that required masks indoors/in the classroom? I can’t remember b/c I read Bennty’s post a few hours ago, but didn’t she say her university is not requiring masks indoors?
I certainly don’t envy her situation as a professor at a school not requiring vaccines or knowing the percentage of students who have been vaccinated. I think whether she works in the classroom/on campus is a separate issue than whether she is ok with her daughter going to class when she herself is not willing to work in person at the same university,
One percent of the vaccinated. That’s for all of the US. I would expect it to be even lower on campuses where everyone is vaccinated!
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I just heard the director of the CDC on NPR. She said masking indoors where Covid is substantial or high but admitted that is 80 percent of the country.
I get why masking could help with spread of the virus and I guess some masking is better than none but these colleges mandating masks in their public spaces will also have students eating in dining halls, hanging out in dorms and goodness knows going to parties maskless, so I don’t know how much wearing masks in class and the library is going to be a game changer.
I’m not advocating for more rules like last year. Things are different now with so many vaccinated. Colleges don’t want to go back either. Seems that some will follow CDC guidance, though, regarding masks and maybe rules like indoor gatherings if it ever comes to that again? I hope not since I just can’t see the CDC limiting gatherings of fully vaccinated people.
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@JBStillFlying Here’s a quote from the NYT on the percent of the vaccinated testing positive for Covid.
"Breakthrough infections make headlines, but they remain uncommon. Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stopped tracking all breakthrough cases in May, about half of all states report at least some data on breakthrough events. The Kaiser Family Foundation recently analyzed much of the state-reported data and found that breakthrough cases, hospitalizations and deaths are extremely rare events among those who are fully vaccinated against Covid-19. The rate of breakthrough cases reported among those fully vaccinated is “well below 1 percent in all reporting states, ranging from 0.01 percent in Connecticut to 0.29 percent in Alaska,” according to the Kaiser analysis.
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Why? It makes no sense. It think it was because they knew there would be a lot of them and it doesn’t help the “get vaccinated” message, if vaccinated people are getting infected.
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Maybe because a lot of those breakthrough cases would be mild or asymptomatic and many of those people wouldn’t even test so breakthrough numbers would not be accurate anyway.
Plus, the goal was to keep people out of the hospital. They do track all Covid cases there so those are being tracked.
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The KFF data is a great compilation; unfortunately, it doesn’t really include the effects of the Delta variant, which are very recent. The CDC P-Town findings are much more current; albeit a situation, as UCB has stated, that’s more analogous to a frat party than the normal day-to-day interactions most of us face. However, the P-Town data is probably fairly relevant to a college campus.
I would 100% agree with your assessment had things not changed in the past couple of weeks. Under the older variants, there would be little need for re-masking for the vaccinated. Delta changes the game (or “war” as the CDC has termed it).
It was likely because they were so rare given the effectiveness of the vaccine w/r/t the other variants. Unfortunately, we probably don’t have a decent baseline comparison now.
To say that the CDC has completely screwed up their messaging is an understatement. The spread of the Delta variant has been quite rapid and Wolensky was warning last June that it would be so. They should have just cut to the chase and recommended universal masking. Maybe they were under political pressure not to.
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@homerdog , if my daughters’ campus were testing vaccinated people with PCR, I would be worried about them testing positive and having to quarantine when not infectious.
PCR doesn’t test for live virus or infectivity. The only reason to test a healthy, vaccinated college student is to remove them from circulation if they are infectious. Therefore, colleges should be using antigen testing for the vaccinated (if they must test them) because antigen tests detect active, infectious virus.
I’d rather vaccinated students wear masks in class than be tested with PCR. In the unlikely event that they become infected despite vaccination, and the even more unlikely event that they become infectious, masks will cut transmission by about 80% for the short period of time that vaccinated people can shed. Another 80% reduction is achieved with three feet of distance, and good ventilation would add more protection. Add a 90% vaccination rate, and I would feel safe teaching that class (I am vaccinated).
If, on the other hand, my vaccinated kids had to test with PCR, I feel like they could test positive at any time for an infection that their vaccine-enhanced immune system had nipped in the bud. Then what? They have to miss class with no virtual option, even though they are not contagious?
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Thanks. I just reached out to Colgate and they are using antigen tests for arrival day. Will follow up with a PCR for any positive rapid test. I’m sure Bowdoin will too since the kids have to test upon arrival and need result ASAP to move in that day.
I’ll be curious to see what other schools are doing that are testing all students throughout that semester.
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Yes, Cornell did a great job last year being on the forefront with their pool testing, contract tracing, and management of covid. There are some things they could have done better with of course, but overall the semester was pretty good and I was never concerned about my daughter’s health while there. On the other hand, my other daughter I stressed about a lot being at school in Texas. We were very fortunate that she somehow dodged the virus on more than one occasion while living in a sorority with 80 other girls. But she survived without getting it, had 0 antibodies and was able to be vaccinated in early February as a result of where she was. Now she’s going back with no Covid protocols unfortunately, other than living in an apartment with only fully vaccinated, all in person classes (but all of only 30ish students) but while academics are second to none, their covid job is for crap. My freshman will be starting at Michigan and they did horrible last year, worse than even UT, but at least they are requiring everyone be vaccinated. My only concern at this point is whether classes stay in person. His all are but not everyone’s are and I have heard some student’s have already switched modalities. I guess we will see how that pans out. He too doesn’t have real big classes but I guess it will depend on how fluid of a situation things are.
@homerdog This is great news re the FDA approval. I had recently heard that they basically cleared their calendars on every other meeting to make this a priority to meet about so that they can go through the data, etc and get this accomplished. However as others have mentioned, I’m not sure how many people this will really get on board because it’s obvious it’s going to get approved so anyone claiming they’re not vaccinated because they need more research blah blah is just making excuses. What the FDA approval will really do however, is allow more and more schools and companies to mandate the vaccine and that is the true difference. I would expect to see that it’s only a matter of time before airlines mandate the vaccine to fly. That would be a huge game changer especially for states like Texas and Florida. I can’t believe that those two states make up more than 1/3 of all covid cases right now. Very scary.
100%.
Yes, of course it’s dumb to send a kid into that. It’s not quite as dumb as sending someone in her 50s with a pre-existing condition into it, but still obviously stupid. Otoh, the kid is of age, has been locked up like Rapunzel for a year and a half, has some agency here, and end of day is not likely to be harmed badly by this bug as far as we know at this moment. She’s hedged about with as much protection as is possible – vax, semiweekly testing, masking, responsible roommate, airflow in the room, sense. My guess is that we’ll retreat to online before she catches it, and if things get bad or she’s freaked out by the environment, she can walk back home or to her dad’s. If she does catch it, she’s here, where I’m close to upper-admin hospital people, and not 800 mi away.
So at the end of all that: fingers crossed. Like Jon Brion said, here we go.