Colleges in the 2021-2022 Academic Year & Coronavirus (Part 2)

Why does the competitiveness of this students college matter?

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Yeah I don’t get this whole discussion about certain types of kids wearing masks more often than others. Of course it’s not cut and dry like that. And what’s the point exactly?

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Ugh
there is a meeting in two days to decide if faculty can change to all virtual instruction for the rest of the semester at SDSU. People are already discussing yanking their kids out if this passes. :sob:

Already? Oh no.

there’s always the other SDSU :slight_smile:

No clue what you are referring to.

They will initially, but over time if the widespread asymptomatic testing program works, then presumably those who test positive will isolate and lower the overall spread of infection. Isn’t that the idea?

Do you find that the executive branch of our US federal government, which has mandated for its employees either the vaccine or regular testing, has hidden its head in the sand?

SDSU = San Diego State University and South Dakota State University.

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Of course, if they use tests that take days to return results, then the tested person will not know to isolate until after some days of spreading the virus.

Also, testing interval matters. Unfortunately, daily testing seems to be considered to be too expensive and inconvenient. But if there is twice per week testing, perhaps strategically picking days of the week can help. For example, at a residential college with a weekend party culture, one test Tuesday or Wednesday can catch infections developing from the previous weekend parties, and one test Thursday or Friday (in time for results to be given Friday afternoon at the latest) can stop some students from being spreaders at weekend parties.

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The executive branch of the government declined to enforce its supposed mandate, rendering it meaningless. Relying on an “honor system” for whether employees were vaxxed or tested recently is futile.

The post the person was responding to involved STEM students from low-SES backgrounds at noncompetitive public universities. The response was essentially saying, “My daughter’s not as you’re describing STEM students; we are parents of a STEM student and definitely not low-SES.” If the daughter’s at a competitive university, rather than the kind I was describing, then it’s not terribly surprising that the poster doesn’t see themselves mirrored in that description.

That might actually be logical rather than simply male bravado:

“ Dr Sarah Jolley, who runs the UCHealth post-Covid care clinic in Aurora, Colorado, told the Observer that about 60% of her patients have been women. In Sweden, Karolinska Institute researcher Dr Petter Brodin, who leads the long Covid arm of the Covid Human Genetic Effort global consortium, suspects that the overall proportion of female long Covid patients may be even higher, potentially 70-80%.”

I don’t think that either gender essentialism or midcentury science v. basketweaving takes explain the SES and political differential, broadly speaking, as you move from lib arts to STEM here. What can help explain it, though, is talking with a lot of students over a long span of time, listening carefully, and trusting their own explanations of why they’re making the choices they do. They are after all the experts. So: that’s what I do.

@ucbalumnus is correct, except that again, depending on where you are, sci and math may or may not be classed as part of the liberal arts. If you’re at a place that skews engineering/tech, where academic sci and math can look a little removed from use (unless at a fancy STEM place where the lib arts in sci/math are valued), I’d guess it’s more likely. If you’re at a place with its roots in arts and/or humanities, likely not, again unless it’s veddy veddy: you’ll just get puzzlement over what sci and math have to do with liberal arts. I had a lovely biochem professor here who taught giant lectures as though she was at a women’s SLAC ca. 1975. Some of the best classes I’ve attended. She was hounded out less than a decade later by the new biotech-minded CFO. I mean chair. But he didn’t see the point of what she was doing, how it’d either pull in funding or ship out high MCAT scores.

You asked @msdynamite85, but I’ll answer, too, because of something that shows up a lot in this kind of questioning – there’s this strange assumption that team uniforms exist. Still happens, surprisingly enough, with Clinton refs. Both Clintons. In any case, I’m pretty far left, JB, but yes, if you’re not doing surveillance testing, you’re not looking, and you’re not seeing the extent of spread, which means you also can’t see what the vaccines are and aren’t managing to do. I don’t see that the executive’s strapped for cash, so yes, I’d call that head in the sand. It doesn’t matter whether the president is Biden or Trump or the risen third-party ghost of FDR manifesting on a slice of breakfast toast.

Yep. We do a Monday/Thursday schedule, mainly because it’s more likely that when I bug the kid for results at night, she’ll actually be in her dorm room and answer. Weekends, I hope she’s having more fun than hanging around sticking a swab up her nose.

If she goes to parties, then Monday may be too soon to find an infection from the previous weekend of parties. Unless she starts partying Thursday evening, Friday would be a better test day if the results are quick.

Of course, if she is not a partier, then the timing of the tests may be different based on when her highest risk activities occur (and not necessarily the same day each week). The optimal times if you cannot afford to test every day would be about 4 days after the highest risk (in terms of catching the virus) activities, and as soon as possible before the highest risk (of spreading to others if contagious) activities.

The former President caught Covid and the rose garden is an official super spreader so no I don’t trust the federal government and yes I do think it hides its head in the sand, including the current one.

I saw the new Candyman movie a few days ago, it is set in this this African -American low income housing complex. I looked at it thinking there is no way in hell covid wouldn’t rip through it like wild fire. However in the past year I don’t think I saw the government or media mention this high risk demographic or HUD putting mitigation strategies in place. What’s the point in closing the schools if the kids are living in theses Petri dishes. Forget an urban legend murderer with a hook hand


It’s so disheartening.

There was no political motivation to the earlier question; the federal gov’t is the largest civilian employer in the US with workforce rules and protocols in all 50 states. Also, FYI, political commentary is inappropriate.

Furthermore, what is the evidence that no surveillance testing is happening? Many localities began wastewater testing last year - Chicago among them. Public health surveillance is distinct from screening or diagnostic testing. CDC lays out the rules and regulations:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/lab/resources/sars-cov2-testing-strategies.html

Leave the screening to the employers and universities, large-event organizers, etc. In this country, any sort of wide-scale tracking of individuals and their Covid status would be of questionable legality short of a law passed for the purpose. Has any state gone that route yet?

Evangelicals of all races make up about 25% of the US population. Using a recent estimate of vaccine hesitancy for “white” Evangelicals, and making the sweeping assumption that the same would apply to Evangelicals of all races uniformly (which it does not), that translates into no more than 6% of the country. Should we really be hyper-focused on that one particular 6%, when at least that percentage are people of color who are also vaccine-hesitant? Seems to me that all these groups need outreach and education. But even supposing one dismisses those stubborn vaccine-hesitant Evangelicals as “hopeless” - it’s still only 6% of the country.

Pretty much all Christian churches in my community - Evangelical or otherwise - are involved in relief efforts abroad and understand what constitutes real hardship. Of course, a lot of those efforts were also stymied in 2020 due to our governor’s executive order. I’m sure the same happened throughout the US. Unfortunately, the poor both abroad and here in the US suffered terribly as a result of Stay-at-Home and other orders that prevented missionaries and volunteers from reaching them.

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Very pleased to see that D20’s school has finally gotten their dashboard up for this semester. Even more pleased to see that the vax rate for undergrad students is 99%. There were 6 positives identified in the past week (D’s roommate was one of them) for a positivity rate of .24%. That’s after two weeks of living on campus and one week of classes. Fingers crossed they can keep it this low and continue to have a somewhat normal semester.

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