I know that there are many people who think that masks are no big deal. They aren’t if you don’t need to talk for long periods of time. I know that in my fall classes, the masked students will just sit there and for the most part not participate unless they are assigned a presentation.
I hated teaching on Zoom and don’t want to do it again as the primary method of instruction. But teaching with mandatory masks is also a reduced inferior experience with its own limitations. It annoys me when I read that masks are nothing, trivial, no big deal. They are a problem in any situation where you’re not a passive blank anonymous factor.
I agree. I tutor at our middle school and masks definitely impact the experience. And our S19 thought it also affected his experience at Bowdoin as well. You can‘t read people’s expressions, cannot hear well, just can’t connect the same. Picturing 20 kids and a professor in his classes all vaccinated and in masks just seems wrong. I’m glad that the college is still saying they will ditch the masks after move in day. I wish other schools with high vaccination rates would do the same.
I’ll do what I have to do and if I want to remain employed, I have no choice. I went out and got vaccinated early, so much so that now it seems I need a booster (last Pfizer shot in Feb., so according to the pharma company that made the shot, I need another). But unvaccinated students and co-workers need to submit to weekly pool testing.
I just don’t care anymore. I will do what I have to do to keep my job. I don’t have any faith in public health authorities. In my state, the governor will probably reintroduce a mask mandate after the summer season is over. Why not now? Because it will interfere with business on the Jersey Shore. Whatever. I don’t care. It’s all hygiene theater.
NJSue, I wonder if you’d be allowed to lecture using a face shield, if you have a good amount of distance from your students? So much more comfortable. I’m sure it’s not the same level of protection, but if the room setup is such that it does not appear to be high risk, maybe that’s an alternative for you?
My national sorority announced that masks will be required at all recruitment events, whether in the house or at another location. That’s for members and guests (potential new members).
I think national panhel will require masks too, just to make everything uniform for the process. Yep, even in Florida.
It’d be irrelevant. If you’re in a tank filling with a pretty good virus concentration – and keep in mind that at this point the best take is 1000x the concentration of what you’d have seen with the alpha strain – the shield is not protecting you. An N95 will buy you time, but the best option is just not to be in that room.
We have one, but as I think through it, I’m thinking how to arrange a better option if D tests positive. (I don’t expect it, since she’s vaxed and will mask outside her room and will avoid the gyms and other obviously dumb places to be with a lot of unvaxed unmasked people, but it’ll be a bad covid neighborhood around here, so there’s a chance.) The last thing you want is a kid getting sicker while neglected in a quarantine dorm, or, maximally, looked after by some undertrained grad RA. No protocols are available for sick-student care, and given the stories I read about how things went in there last year, I assume the kids will be on their own.
D goes off to the dorm with 16 weeks’ worth of Binax, test 2x/wk. Delta reaches quite transmissible levels before it shows up on tests, so unfortunately the tests won’t save the roommate that trouble, but at least the roommate would know to get tested if D tested positive.
Incidentally, about presuming that sniffles are nothing if you’re vaxed, and not getting a test – my college roommate’s middle-aged boyfriend has now been sick with Covid for nearly a month after driving his Covid-positive mother home from Florida. She was so sure she was fine, because vaxed, and that it was just allergies that she didn’t even say anything about it. The first clue might’ve been the failure of allergy meds to do anything, because they don’t, you know, work on Covid, but regardless, do not assume that sniffles are nothing, even if you’re vaxed. You don’t know who’s around you who can’t be vaccinated, or just hasn’t been.
Two days ago, I was listening to our local NPR station and they had an infectious disease doc on answering questions. I called in and asked about surveillance testing on a campus where 95+ percent of the faculty and students were vaccinated. The doc said she gets questions like this a lot from companies as well. I wanted to know if it made sense and also asked about the possibility of false positives
She said that, in places with low Covid transmission, she did not think this type of testing made sense. If transmission was higher in that town, then maybe testing should be done. As for false positives, she said that any positive rapid test should be followed up by a PCR to confirm and maybe even a second PCR a few days after that to avoid the event of a false positive.
3 colleagues in my department just tested positive for Covid. All 3 where fully vaccinated. They say that they feel like they have a bad flu, headache, cough, really tired. They are staying at home for 10 days.
My manager told the rest of us to get a PCR test if symptomatic, otherwise take a lateral flow test twice a week. They say that since we are in a hospital and practice strong infection control protocol routinely ( vaccinated, masks and social distance ) that we don’t need to isolate unless symptomatic.
What are the levels of Covid in your area? Do you mean to say that you work in health care and you and your colleagues are also, in that case, more likely to be around positive cases?
For those of you with kids going to schools that test upon arrival, are you trying to think of alternative ways to quarantine your son or daughter in case of a positive rapid test? My brain is already working overtime trying to think of what we would do on move in day if our D is positive. Colgate is asking those within 300 miles to have their kids quarantine at home if they are positive any time during the year so the kids are allowed to leave campus. I get that that’s not great for the community but it is what it is. We are not within 300 miles, more like 700, but I think we’d figure out some way for her to stay somewhere else…maybe even just drive home. Or maybe find an airbnb and have one of us stay there with her.
Welp a vaccinated student in my current summer class just tested positive for Covid (had sore throat, had been at an unmasked gathering of vaccinated people last week). Today is the last day of class and we’re doing presentations. He can record his as a video assignment but others won’t be seeing it, which is too bad. This is a taste of what’s to come in the fall, I guess.
One thing Covid should have taught parents is to move their children off campus as soon as humanly possible. I realize there are schools where that simply isn’t possible, but as a parent I would make the conscsious decision to avoid those institutions.
Surely you’ll do a rapid test before leaving home? The result won’t be different 10 hours later when you get there.
The issue of what to do in the event of a subsequent positive test is more difficult. I don’t see how traveling to get a kid would make any sense. I think we’ll end up with them staying in their rooms, with the expectation that the roommate will have been exposed and have to stay too.