I’ll send you a PM.
My daughter started as a grad school and TA today in Wyoming, so a red state (if there ever was one!) Masks required indoors. The prof she’s a TA for said she (prof) would come to the recitation classes if necessary. My daughter said “No need. Someone doesn’t have a mask on, they are absent and attendance is part of their grade.” They want to come to office hours, mask required. Daughter said no issues so far and she doesn’t really expect any.
Wyoming is going for the carrot and not the stick. Those who are vaccinated win prizes all semester long
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Don’t forget to send that president a thank-you – whoever it is is undoubtably under pressure over the policy, and the bolstering does help.
This sounds sensible, but what have our health experts said? I was following Lolla in Chicago pretty closely not only because it was a very large gathering during the time that Delta started surfacing, but also because my kid’s university has an epidemiologist on faculty who came right out and said that the crowds were simply too large and lots of people would get Covid. Others predicted a super-spreader event. Not sure anything like that has happened (and we are now three weeks from the close). NB: Lolla required a vax card or negative test, but still - we all saw the pics.
There have been state fairs as well around the midwest and those are major large gatherings - particularly in MN and IA. Usually crowds will approach about 100k per day - more on the weekends - over a 10 or 11-day event. MN attracted over 2 million total in 2019; if IA’s own event, just ended, is any indication, that attendance won’t be compromised much this year (IA’s own 1.1 million was just slightly off from 2019). I’d be paying close attention to things like infection spikes and hospitalizations in both states over the next month or so. Neither event required or is requiring vaccination or masking. MN is more vaxed than IA but neither state leads the region.
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I’d start with CIDRAP: COVID-19 | CIDRAP . Osterholm’s pretty gold-standard as a source and I really feel for the dude: he’s just trying to bring the news but it’s just not good, and he’s not used to this level of attack.
The state fairs should worry people a lot, but I suspect that their effect will be drowned in school starts. Both have pretty crummy vax rates, though not the worst. MN is a local-choice state for the school districts, and IA is a mask-ban state. It’s possible that in both, the state fair will have been a sort of primer – lots of spread with people taking delta home to lots of school districts. In large parts of both, schoolkid-parent-age people aren’t well-vaccinated. At university level, UMN requires masks on campus, but not vax; it looks like the Minnesota State network also requires masks indoors. It does not look like Iowa requires mask or vax at any of its universities. I don’t see anything for either about testing being required.
Those pictures from Lolla were heart-stopping, but…well, unfortunately we don’t actually know how much spread there was. We know there was pretty much no severe disease resulting. But we don’t know how many of the kids were infected and transmitting without knowing it to other kids who then had imperceptible or mild cases. Testament to the vaccine’s power, though. Which Paul Krugman did a great job of pointing out the other day.
Not sure what you mean by “that’s precisely the situation.” Are there universities prohibiting their instructors from requiring masks in class? I see a distinction between a blanket requirement and a professor’s right to teach their class in the manner they deem to be appropriate. Not sure how this is playing out outside our own state (our flagship required masks and vax).
For K-12, I like what our governor has done which is leave it up to the individual districts to hash out. (ETA, ah, you’ve noted that). My high school senior’s charter school (which is a k-12 in its own district) will be starting with masks and 3’ social distancing. They have air-exchangers set up in the building, etc. It all seems very reasonable to me. Our local assigned district has just required masks and there’s pushback by some parents, and pushback to the pushback by others. Thankfully, not my battle, since we left that district and went elsewhere. In-fighting seems like a preferred parental activity in some larger districts around here; covid protocols are just the latest battle-du-jour.
Our Governor, who was very strong with the mandates last year, has now left the mask issue to the school districts and today, the first day of school in most districts, was a mess. BIG protests in some districts, parents pulling their kids out.
The mayor of Denver said masks for everyone - school staff, teachers, students. Everyone. Also requiring vaccinations for all eligible staff, teachers, volunteers, city workers, bus drivers. Everyone. And no trouble whatsoever. Everyone has to follow the same rules, so just do it.
I like that all students wear masks, whether they are vaccinated or not. Makes it easier on the teachers to require masks for everyone rather than just those unvaccinated and require them to check vaccination card. Everyone wears a mask.
If the governor said it for all schools, k-12 and state colleges, it would be easier for those on the front lines to enforce it, like is was in 2020 when masks were required all through the state and in the school systems through June 2021.
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Without getting too off-topic, IMO Osterholm is a straight-shooter. Don’t always agree with his underlying angle but he’s good at his job and doesn’t beat around the bush.
I could see that happening with some localities around here because there would be overall consensus with the mayor and with a top-down approach to decision-making. For instance, when the state mask mandate was lifted, certain localities imposed their own with no pushback. The biggest conflicts seem to come about when the political leaders go one way and the school district another. Of course, that should be no surprise in a politically and philosophically diverse locality. And the debate is heightened by the “What about the Children!” rhetoric. Both sides think the other is harming the kids! One thing we have here in this state (and hopefully others) is an ability to vote with our feet - and that existed long before Covid. For those public alternatives (charter, magnet), the state funds follow the kids right out of the district. Bussing and textbook monies follow them even to sectarian private school. So regardless of which side they fall on this particular debate, families will leave if they feel their kids’ needs aren’t being met. That’s to be expected. I suppose that the debate can get even more rancorous if families don’t have that freedom.
I suspect that our guv left the hard decisions up to the localities and school districts because he had some unfavorable poll numbers. However, that’s mere speculation, and a topic for another time. But it does bring up the pure political angle (mentioned several other times on these Covid threads) that governors take many factors into account, including the will of the people, when issuing executive orders.
We have the same rule. And of course no one will ever be found to be less than 3’ apart (although of course they will be). Probably no proof of vaccination required. It was very telling at the last SB meeting that the chief of staff (sitting in for the sup’t) was NOT masked in a room packed with antimaskers/antivaxxers.
My division starts after Labor Day. I’m sure my district is watching the districts that have already opened and their problems, and are figuring out ways to get around those issues by hiding information and not contact tracing properly.
Since there were so many young people at Lolla, we won’t know. We just won’t know. That’s the thing about Delta – there is SO MUCH spread going on that any contact tracing that happens is going to be inadequate unless it’s in a very small environment such as that cruise ship that just had so many people test positive.
Yep. Last week we were under a tornado warning, so all schools were packed in the hallways for 25 min. Heads were down and everyone masked, but still. Anyone who tested positive the next day should have resulted in several exposures, but no.
With the at home testing kits so popular, it is harder to get a sense of positivety rates too
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Well schools are being careful. Even at Bowdoin the only place you don’t need a mask is outside…
This year will look very much like last year once everyone turns the heat on and heads inside for the fall and winter.
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Are you saying you think colleges will be moving to remote instruction and de-densified (or closed) campuses? Do you not believe the vaccines are allowing us to learn to live with this virus?
I hope not, but I fear that might be the case. I say that as someone that is living with the virus and not cloisteiring away in almost any way. I don’t believe schools will close down, but Covid spread will panic some for sure. How they react to the panic will be interesting to watch.
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Actually, they don’t need to wear masks inside residence halls either, and they are currently planning on lifting this requirement on September 4 if the level of infection proves to be low. Amherst is not requiring masks inside residence halls either.
https://www.bowdoin.edu/president/writings-and-addresses/messages-to-the-community/2021/aug-23.html
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I’m personally interested in what happened at Lolla since my kid attends school in Chicago and events like Lolla will drive the city’s public health decisions which will in turn drive the university’s public health decisions . . . Hence my return to the subject now.
We can, indeed, start to put some parameters on the question “did Lolla contribute to an outbreak?” “We just don’t know” isn’t a meaningful answer, with all due respect, because it’s possible to crunch the numbers, compare to base-line, and subject the data to other reasonable standards of analysis. Keep in mind that many health experts urged significantly scaling back the event or cancelling it altogether, so this was a bit of an experiment on Team Lightfoot/Arwady’s part. The results, regardless, have to be quite meaningful in contributing to public health guidance across the country!
So here is what we know:
- 90% of 385,000 attendees were vaccinated (nb: remaining 10% presumably carried the required proof of negative Covid test).
- No hospitalizations or deaths were linked to the event.
- Only 0.0004% of vaccinated attendees tested positive, and 0.0016% of unvaccinated attendees tested positive, so unvaxed had a 4x higher infection rate.
- These numbers aren’t just from Chicago; CDPH worked with health departments across the country to identify positive cases.
- While infection rates were and are increasing in Chicago, they were doing so before Lolla and have not been connected to that event.
Public Health Commissioner Arwady reportedly feels confident enough to allow upcoming indoor events in Chicago. Here are some additional outcomes:
A. Bud Biliken Parade (the largest African American parade in the US) required masks inside festival grounds for everyone and proof of full vaccination or a negative test. Furthermore, the unvaccinated could only enter if they agreed to get the shot that day.
B. The Black Women’s Expo will recommend masks but not require them for guests inside a reconfigured, larger space at McCormick Place; will be focusing on overcoming vaccine hesitancy in the Black community instead of mandating vaccine or testing. “I think that’s more important for our community than trying to say we’re not doing events. We’re there with the vaccines for all of those who need it,” said (event executive) Merry Green.
The above distinct approaches, specifically addressed to African Americans, underscore that not only are there various ways to reach the vaccine-hesitant, but that there is more than one way to safely hold a large-scale event - as Lolla has demonstrated as well. Tailoring it to the needs of the target community is the surest recipe for success. Cancelling things or disinviting people is probably not the way forward.
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I just saw this earlier Bowdoin College announces indoor mask mandate as students and faculty return to campus - Portland Press Herald
Great if it’s just for a short time.
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Here in GA at one of the colleges two lecturers quit. Seems like the university found replacements though.