Cornell posted the past three days’ worth of test results, and it confirms a big jump in positives—154 from Friday to Saturday. Their dashboard does not show oversubscribed quarantine housing, but the numbers don’t add up, and Redditors say the university has rented out an entire hotel for overflow.
It is difficult to see how things can be contained if large indoor parties with no masking are allowed, even if all students are vaccinated.
I noted the same three weeks ago, when my vaccinated S was infected: Colleges in the 2021-2022 Academic Year & Coronavirus (Part 2) - #3260 by Twoin18
Nothing I’ve seen so far changes my mind, that the US is basically now going to live with it and most of us are ultimately going to get infected. We’ll just be more angst ridden about it than the Europeans, because of all the contradictory advice, rules, etc.
Even our high school, in an otherwise highly vaccinated and cautious part of NorCal, pretty much wants to brush it under the table - district rules say you only need test if you are an unvaccinated close contact (and they mean within 6 feet, not just in the same classroom) or symptomatic. And there are no plans whatsoever about what if any conditions would prompt a return to online instruction.
I agree that most of us are going to get it at some point. Not sure what can be done about that unless we want to lock down again and I don’t think that is going to happen.
If the colleges can’t prevent large gatherings, their plans for in-person instructions for the fall term are likely doomed. Many professors aren’t likely to agree to teach in person to a roomful of infected students, with or without masks.
One area that you didn’t discuss is that the vaccinated, masked, and social distancing can help SLOW the spread and therefore less patients overwhelming the hospitals, etc.
Also, I’m hoping that the vaccinated population will give the medical professionals valuable time to create booster shots and new vaccines to address the new variant(s).
I hope the colleges more restrictive stance starting the new year will give students a wake up call to stay away from large gatherings and limit the spread, otherwise the schools will be forced to go online.
Although our high school seems to be fine to just ignore this risk (don’t ask, don’t tell!). Quite a few retirements over the summer of course.
Maybe professors have more leverage in some colleges, but at least here that doesn’t seem to be the driver, it’s a question of whether someone gets riled up and makes a big fuss, or if everyone tacitly concludes that we are all vaccinated so need to just get on with it
By the way, my sons SoCal high school is requiring weekly CV-19 tests for athletes, otherwise they cannot participate in Sports. However, they are not testing any other kids at school, as of yet.
“Don’t ask, don’t tell” may work at places where teachers/professors don’t have much leverage, but likely only for a while, until someone (an immunocompromised or ailing student/teacher/professor/family member) gets really sick from the virus.
My daughter is a TA at a flagship. Masks required indoors. She expects no trouble. She’s only teaching discussion groups of about 20 and doing office hours.
If a 25 year old can enforce it, I think most professors can. She takes attendance for part of their grade, and if no mask, she doesn’t recognize them as attending.
I don’t remember coming within 6’ of most of my professors all through school. Even in discussion classes, they stood or sat in the front or at the ‘head’ of the table and we sat in front of them or around a table, and we weren’t even trying to keep a distance. With trying, it should be easier.
It does help if students can be respectful.
I’m skeptical there will be a delta booster. I watched a Q&A with Moderna’s CEO in June 2020 and he claimed they could make a booster in 30 days and get it out to production. Well where is that booster? By the time it’s released it will be too late.
I think most colleges have decided to just rip off the band aid and proceed as if the vaccines actually prevent transmission rather than the reality that they only reduce illness severity (much like the flu vaccine) and that’s why testing and isolation housing is getting short shrift. Some added in vaccine and masking mandates to help allay parental concerns but guaranteed students aren’t wearing masks except in classrooms and dining halls and those aren’t the big transmission vectors.
A while might still be a long time. In our county of ~800K people there’s not been a single death of someone under 20 during the whole pandemic and only 7 total deaths in the last month. Number of hospitalized patients (ICU and acute care) has hovered around 50, so if people spend 3-5 days in hospital, that’s 1 in 2000-3000 amongst the population as a whole in the last month.
So I’m sure some students or teachers have a family member who has been hospitalized. But the chances of something happening that can be blamed on the school still seem low. And the lower income minority communities that have suffered the most from hospitalizations, are precisely those for whom online school failed and who most want in person classes, so they are incentivized not to complain (or even report cases).
What stops it is staying away from people. What we had in place last year actually worked for people who took it seriously.
I know nobody wants to hear this, but a large proportion of adults who get this wind up with long-term problems. A fifth of college-aged students who’re symptomatic have trouble shaking symptoms. We don’t yet know what “long term” really means with this thing, but it’s not a thing you want to shrug about. In the end, yes, unless people are willing to take this seriously even post-vaccine (continuing to mask with N95s and eye shields indoors, masking lightly outdoors, getting boosters), putting things online makes sense.
There is unfortunately worse news that can happen: there’s already work done on an engineered pseudovirus showing the chess moves covid has to make to evade current spike-based vaccines. They’re possible. Two of the four combination dials are already cracked. New vax development’s already underway, but my guess is that even if it’s successful, US uptake will be no better than flu vax, possibly worse.
Back in AIDS days there were certainly people who shrugged and said “it’s inevitable,” and were extremely angry at the end safe sex put to a whole culture of libertine self-knowledge and repression-overthrowing, but it wasn’t inevitable, and the results for those who got it, and for their families, weren’t nice at all. It was traumatic even for bystanders, as this pandemic will be, is. And there are still vast numbers of people who swear up and down that it’s unnecessary to change how they live because of climate change, and yet it is in fact necessary to make dramatic changes.
What’s that phrase? Adapt or die?
D’s school has just announced reduced dining hall capacity to facilitate social distancing.
The reality is this just actually delays the inevitable. Yes, we should slow it down but the reality is we won’t be able to be locked down forever and in situations where 98% are vaccinated why shouldn’t we open things up some?
We locked down last year and the virus slowed but didn’t go away. Once we opened it came back again. The vaccines help but they don’t stop it, Delta. In the end we’re all going to be exposed.
Well clearly it’s not a thing you want to shrug about. However the majority of the population is going to do exactly that, the vaccinated because many of them believe that certain risks are worth taking and the unvaccinated because they don’t understand the risk.
For example, almost everyone we know is now prepared to take the risk of dining with (vaccinated) friends (albeit mostly outdoors), going to watch outdoor sports, flying to see friends or going on vacation.
One thing that seems to be a neglected area of research is the risk, duration, and severity of “long COVID-19”. What little research there is seems to be all over the place, even though scary anecdotes (mostly from the pre-vaccine days) were common enough that it is not to be taken lightly by unvaccinated adults. There is even less on the subject for breakthrough cases, so vaccinated people are basically guessing as to whether (contingent on getting infected) their risk of “long COVID-19” is minimal, as high as for an unvaccinated person, or somewhere in between. The same can be said for children too young to be vaccinated.
Add to that the varying definitions of “long COVID-19” that can skew risk percentages that do get published (a minor annoyance that lasts six weeks is different from a major disability that lasts six months, a year, or a lifetime).
So it is likely the case that differences of opinion are at least partially based on individual guesses about the risk of “long COVID-19” based on very incomplete information (this was the case pre-vaccine as well, although immediate concerns about hospitalization, ICU, ventilation, and death were bigger concerns pre-vaccine). Some people may be very pessimistic on the subject, while others may be very optimistic on the subject. It is also likely that, if good research on “long COVID-19” gets published, it may be that many people have hardened their opinions based on previous guesses, even if the good research provides much better risk information than before.
This is an area where YMMV by academic specialty and the quality of the PhD program.
My kids’ school was very strict about de-densification last year and used that norm for each person in the room because there was no vaccine. That is not necessary this year as people have the opportunity to vaccinate. For this case, all that is required would be sufficient distance between the (hopefully vaccinated) instructor and the students. Incidentally, at my kid’s school the have a mask requirement; however, the instructor or presenter is allowed to unmask in order to be heard. I have no doubt that this was a request made by a good number of faculty.
His issue is with his employer. Since he disagreed with the work environment and didn’t seem to feel that he was at liberty to make masking a condition for the student’s receiving a passing grade, resigning was probably his bet choice. The reason that I mentioned classroom size is that social distancing is of course a layer of protection that also protects people from Covid. We dont’ know the back story but it wasn’t reported that he pursued this option so we are left to conclude that he did not. Perhaps that wasn’t satisfactory to him either. As I said, this is between him and his employer.
That can border on harassment. The student didn’t violate any rules by declining to wear a mask. As we likely don’t have all the facts, it’s probably best not to jump on the shame wagon.
ETA: some have mentioned the lack of ventilation in the instructor’s classroom. That is unfortunate and a tad surprising. Are public buildings in GA not sufficiently ventilated? That underscores the work environment aspect of this issue.
This is correct. Cornell’s Covid dashboard is not looking too good right now. One can also see the entire county which includes Cornell and what is happening. One big mistake they made is that they didn’t require arrival testing which made no sense since they were requiring surveillance testing. However, some didn’t start testing until almost a week after arriving which was ill-planned. Their emails to the parents have been informative and they’re going to start testing students more than once/week in order to get it under control. There are no cases of transmission in classrooms (great news) so they are not planning to go to remote or online and for those in quarantine they are addressing their educational needs.
They didn’t use a covid hotel this year, so it’s not a hotel that is full, it’s an old all women’s dorm that is being used for quarantining. Over the weekend they ran out of space and started putting overflow at a small local hotel. When they quarantine they usually don’t just quarantine those who are positive but when they do their contract tracing and are awaiting results but over a period of days since you can be negative for multiple days until you show a positive. This year, I’m not sure if they’re requiring vaccinated to quarantine if within close contact or not. There are 2 greek houses that have a large number of cases among them. Fortunately, parties have been canceled and hopefully with school having just begun, the case count will slow down and they can get things under control. WIth the long weekend coming up, that may be another big test, but time will tell. Last year when they had some outbreaks they were able to clamp down quickly so everyone’s hopes are that they will do the same this time. Of the 3 schools I have kids at, I feel the safest with Cornell. My other two not as much but at least they’re all vaccinated and if they get it, our hopes are it will be a mild case.
Are they now (effectively) quarantine houses?