There are around 150 different rapid tests (that take much less than 30 minutes) available in the UK/EU. The technology has existed for 18 months!
5 Likes
Whitman also did post Thanksgiving testing and happy to report only 2 out of 1995 tests were positive. Campus is 98% vaccinated (99% of students), with only a handful positive this semester. I was a bit surprised since masks are required indoors but my son says most donât wear them outside of classrooms, and parties and campus life are pretty normal as far as he can tell. Hopefully this continues with omicron. No boosters required at this point.
1 Like
Omicron appears to be so contagious that it will likely be on nearly every campus in January, and few colleges are likely to have enough isolation/quarantine spaces to contain it. I donât know how colleges are going to deal with it. The best (and only?) hope is that this variant is universally mild.
2 Likes
RelatedâŠ
In todayâs update, Barnard reminded that Flu Vaccines will be required to return for the Spring Semester. Flu vax proofs will need to have been uploaded by Jan 10th.
If Omicron is much more contagious than Delta (and âuniversally mildâ), only the colleges that are doing surveillance testing in vaccinated students would see a huge increase in cases. If itâs universally mild, students at schools without surveillance testing wonât seek out a test if they have symptoms (and of course if asymptomatic no reason to get tested either). Which in turn could send us down the path (again assuming Omicron is universally mild) of not doing any surveillance testing, at least in those who are vaccinated. Time will tell what we are dealing with.
2 Likes
CDC does not require surveiilance testing of fully vaccinated
â It is recommended that fully vaccinated people with no COVID-19-like symptoms and no known exposure should be exempted from routine screening testing programs, if feasible.â as of November 19, 2021
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully-vaccinated-guidance.html#anchor_1617376555813
Agreed, but some colleges are doing regular surveillance testing of all students, vaccinated or not.
2 Likes
Ty, I do not understand why some colleges go beyond CDC guidance for testing ( Nov. 4 IHE guidance)
2 Likes
Same, they justify it by saying in congregate settings it makes sense to be more conservative than CDC guidelines, and that their priority is to keep the community safe. At least thatâs how Bowdoin positions it.
1 Like
@DigitalDad - that made me smile - the difference between youth and us! struggling to find reading glasses! i would say ditto to everything you said, including the slightly waned enforcement when we visited NYC a month ago.
Surveillance testing does seem to help reduce the number of potential infections at least pre-Omicron. The colleges that do the most frequent testing (some as many as twice weekly for everyone) seem to have the lowest positivity rates.
3 Likes
Right. And Bowdoin and other schools that do it also cite keeping faculty and staffâs families safe if they have young ones or immune compromised family members at home. Surely, it is a very conservative stance since 99.9 percent of Bowdoinâs faculty, staff and students are vaccinated but there have been cases nonetheless.
7 Likes
Part of that recommendation might also have been a carrot, offering some tangible benefit to those who otherwise might have been to get vaccinated. If the outcome is an overall higher vaccine acceptance, then being somewhat âcompromisingâ on testing regimes does make public-policy sense.
Given high-density living, âworkingâ and dining conditions of people from travelling from and eventually returning to locations across the country/world (vs. nicely spaced, and half-occupied corporate offices - or the occasional visit to your favorite/local restaurant), some colleges didnât feel that skipping testing was âfeasibleâ under these worst-case circumstances.
It does seem like the colleges that are doing regular surveillance testing of vaccinated students are the relatively more wealthy schools. Testing is expensiveâŠI am not sure there are any large publics doing surveillance testing for example.
1 Like
Exactly. The rich private schools seem to think itâs not feasible to not test, yet most colleges in the country are not routinely testing asymptomatic students. It is feasible to not test but the schools that chose the testing route will not admit it. How long is is going to take them to stop testing? What metric tells them that they can stop? Once youâve gone there, itâs hard to back off.
3 Likes
How does their testing affect you, for you to wish it to cease?
In many countries, much more systematic and frequent testing than the U.S. is the norm. Why would their added testing be a problem?
If anything, frequent and systematic testing at least in SOME areas/colleges, can spot trends early on - such as alerting the rest of the world to Omicron, which then knows what to look for while still in an early stage.
Taken to the extreme, Chinaâs aggressive monitoring and vaccination stance means that the U.S. has more Covid deaths in a week, than much bigger China in a year. While the weekly deaths are perfectly âfeasibleâ to America, one wouldnât expect others to weigh competing priorities (e.g., privacy, personal liberties vs. survival) in the same manner.
4 Likes
The inequality issue aside, I donât see the downside of testing either. It may or may not be economical, but thatâs their call.
3 Likes
I donât really care if they test or not. It just shouldnât be justified to others by saying, that not testing is ânot feasibleâ. It most certainly is feasible. These schools are rich and have chosen to go beyond what the CDC recommends. The rest of my post holds - once you decide to test like this, when do you stop?
I apologize, if me using the term âfeasibleâ is causing offense. It was the term used by the CDC quote, so I carried it over âby defaultâ.
Entirely my faux-pas.
Bowdoin has had very few cases and has used that info to open up more. Masks are still required in class but not in the student union or library when studying alone and no masks in dorms. Sports happen inside with athletes not masked, only the crowd. And parties are happening on campus with the junior senior ball happening recently with 100s of kids in no masks. So, testing (and nearly 100% vaccinated) has helped them feel confident about dropping masks in many instances. Theyâve also announced they will move to pool testing after break. Iâll be curious if they stick with that if omicron ends up being a big deal. Seems that most everyone on campus and parents are ok with surveillance testing being dropped since kids are with each other so often without masks already and they arenât seeing many cases.
2 Likes