Well, fortunately at my kids’ school, vaccinated kids who need to isolate do not have to do so at their own expense (it’s provided). As I said, if there are schools who are forcing vaccinated kids to pay for their own isolation housing, I think that is a terrible policy, and I’d be furious. Fortunately, I believe that’s rare (whereas unvaccinated kids may be more likely to have to provide for themselves—and in my mind, deserve it!!).
Homerdog, I share so many of your concerns. But I think you are viewing your child as Joey (don’t want him to miss class due to a positive test), and may not be worried your child could be Susie (gets really sick and has to miss class because she is pretty miserable with covid, with a breakthrough case she caught from Joey who could have stopped the chain of transmission but didn’t). Wouldn’t you be SO MAD if your kid ends up being Susie??? Aren’t you hearing about a significant portion of the breakthrough cases being ones where the kids feel truly crappy? Even if only 20% of the breakthrough cases make kids feel so crappy, if Joey passes it on to 5 kids, there will be just as many Susies as there are Joeys…your kid, my kid, could be Susies!!
And I agree, they need to make sure that isolation periods are the minimum that are required to breaks chains of transmissions. I felt that they moved reasonably quickly last year on making the adjustment to shorter quarantines once the information was available, and now with more information, I think they can move even quicker. . At any rate, there’s no reason to think it would be LONGER than the 7 days currently required.
And I get your point except that I’m not sure there’s evidence that a significant percentage of cases make people feel very sick.
What I’m envisioning is a bunch of asymptomatic or students with cold symptoms sitting in isolation feeling just fine. Everything I’ve read says that vast majority of these cases are super mild.
My understanding is that it is 7 OR 10, depending on when you test and if you are symptom-free. So it is within your power (by testing) to reduce your quarantine time to 7 days. Or you can not test, and have a 10 (or even 14) day quarantine. Given that my gang would be all over appropriately timed testing to reduce quarantine, I think of it as a 7 day required quarantine by the CDC (unless of course they end up with a long lasting INFECTIOUS case, which would stink all around).
I’m confused…vaccinated people don’t have to quarantine if exposed. Of course anyone with symptoms before a confirmatory test should quarantine (but let’s be real…tons of students aren’t going to quarantine for a sniffle, let alone seek out a covid test).
Anyone who is infected (based on positive test) needs to isolate, and follow CDC timelines.
At least here, vaxxed kids with breakthru cases from the delta or delta plus variant do mostly have bad flu symptoms. The alpha strain covid kids seemed more likely to be mild cold symptoms or asymptomatic.
If you have campus housing and test positive for COVID-19, you will isolate for 10 days in the Mods (our modular housing designed to house students who have been diagnosed with COVID-19). You will receive medical consultation and monitoring from staff at Tufts Health Service. You can request that food be delivered to you from Dining Services during your period of isolation by using the Transact Mobile App and selecting Dining2YOU. You can return to in-person campus activities after you have been medically cleared to end isolation.
If you live off campus, you will isolate for 10 days in your home or apartment. You will need to make your own arrangements for having food or meals delivered during your period of isolation and you should not leave your apartment unless you need to seek medical care. You can return to in-person campus activities after Health Service medical staff have cleared you to end isolation.
Whether you live on or off campus, if your family is fully vaccinated and lives within driving distance of Tufts, you also may go home to complete your 10-day isolation. (Please remember that students who test positive may not use public means of transport.) You can return to Tufts after Health Service medical staff have cleared you to end isolation.
If you are exposed to someone who has COVID-19
If you are informed by a contact tracer that you have been exposed to a person who has COVID-19 you will be advised to do the following:
If you are fully vaccinated: You do not need to quarantine; however, you will receive specific guidance on testing because your testing frequency will increase during the 2 weeks following the exposure. You also will need to monitor your health closely and report any symptoms to Tufts Health Service.
If you are not fully vaccinated: You will need to quarantine and separate yourself from others while you closely monitor your health. Quarantine may take place in your usual residence or you may be required to move into the Mods if you have a roommate. You may leave quarantine to pick up food. You will be advised to test more frequently after the exposure and Health Service staff will inform you when it is safe for you to leave quarantine.
I don’t believe any of the vaccine-mandating residential colleges have claimed they would eradicate COVID. It will make outbreaks much less likely to begin with and easier to contain.
UTSD doesn’t require vaccines of students or staff (and isn’t tracking vaccinations), doesn’t mandate masks, only even tests students who live in student housing (4% of the undergraduate population), and is located in a community with low vaccination rates and high community spread. This is apples and oranges compared to the schools we’ve been discussing in this thread.
Quarantine is the term for how long you are benched if you are EXPOSED (close contact) to a positive, and it can be as short as 7d. If you are Vaxd and exposed to a positive and have NO symptoms then you do not quarantine. If at some point in that quarantine you end up testing positive then you move to the isolation phase which is always 10days.
Isolation is the term for how long you are benched if you are POSITIVE, regardless vaxxd or not vaxxd, symptoms or not, it is TEN days (from first symp or from positive test if asymptomatic). It is isolation for vaccinated positives that needs to be considered to shorten less than 10, but so far there is no shorter option. Period.
This is a massive problem and I’ve been talking about it with colleagues. A major problem last year was the enormous variability in how individual profs were handling absences and online workload, and the students were absolutely fried. As were we, something I didn’t realize until I got to the end of the semester and couldn’t take another step. Actually just had to stop and faceplant.
There’s tremendous resistence in academia to recognizing that we’re in a pandemic and it is going to hurt productivity. A lot. A lot, a lot, a lot. Amount learned, reduced. Amount of new knowledge produced, reduced. Everything, reduced. Last semester, sometime around February, there was a mass freakout coming largely from a certain kind of guy who just couldn’t take the sense of falling behind anymore, and the whips came out and people just got driven along. We can’t afford to do this.
This will 100% go against the grain for parents of high-achieving kids, but I would urge you to get in touch with your kids’ deans, provosts, and presidents and urge them to ease the hell up on the teaching end. They’ll never do it on the research end because that means less money. But they’ve already got your tuition $$$. You just want to make sure they’re not wrecking the kids in the process of trying to hit that top top mark during a pandemic.
If you want an analogue, spend some time watching some of the zillions of wartime documentaries about civilian Britain. That was five years. People lost their minds, got so worn down by the daily hardship and danger and uncertainty that they just couldn’t hold it together anymore. Excellent reasons why no one wanted to talk about it afterwards. We’re now in year two. We have to adjust the expectations or we’ll be dealing with the trauma for decades.
I was like “oh wow, sorry about your colleagues, response sounds good” until I got to that last part, when the needle went straight across the record. That part makes no sense, given the infectivity of asymptomatic vaxed people. Is that the entire hospital’s protocol?
Vaccinated students will only be tested if symptomatic which they means they have to voluntarily ask for a test. My son has told me that he and his friends have all agreed that the the only way they are getting tested is if they are so sick they need to go to the hospital. According to the policy vaccinated students only have to isolate if they gave a positive test. Well, if you don’t get tested, you can’t be positive. No one wants to miss two weeks of class.
Currently at a Colgate University zoom town hall. Only around 40 students received vaccine exemptions and they will need to follow guidelines for testing before arriving and once they arrive on campus. Plans for the fall is not as strict as last semesters. Testing is not recommended for asymptomatic vaccinated person (following CDC guidelines). Waste water testing will not be done this school year. Spectators will be allowed during the games. Masks are required during in person classes. More to follow.
. At any rate, there’s no reason to think it would be LONGER than the 7 days currently required.
