Yes, I can’t help having those feelings as well. I realize you are not trying to stir up an argument - but everytime during the virtual semester, or during semester breaks that my daughter came back from a Covid call, from a patient who had chosen not to get vaccinated, not once did that person refuse transport or hospitalzations and say to my daugher: "Oh sweetie, don’t worry about putting on that gown and respirator, taping down sleeves and legs, don’t contaminate your Ambulance and take it out of service for 3 hours of cleaning - when it can’t respond to real emergencies, don’t risk those volunteer firefighers who have to help carry me down some steep, narrow stairway, don’t expose all those nice nurses and staff to my infection. Don’t worry about what just ONCE might have slipped past all the precautions and what you then might be bringing home to your parents and grandparents. I don’t trust Medicine and what Doctor’s recommend – just let me desperately gasp for air here at the comfort of my home."
It’s one thing to be rerouted straight to the morgue on occasion, but for a not-quite-20-year-old it’s tough to “put away” the loud, vocal, visible anguish of patients’ family members, whom she faces absolutely helpless.
So my level of tolerance is straight 0. Just as in previous decades, I’m for whatever mandates/inconveniences it takes to “get this done”.
I love the EMT parent perspective. My son has been deconned countless times. He’s a bit older than your daughter, and he’s pretty pragmatic about it, but he hates the decon down time away from calls when people need help.
Yep, people don’t account for the fact, that many volunteer-served towns/areas only have a rig or two in the first place - and if they are lucky they might have crews to man BOTH rigs at crunch times.
But, during Covid, many older members (understandably) opted to take a leave for essentially a year - leaving ambulances without crews to staff them, except while college students were home.
If you then have that one crew out of service to decontaminate themselves and then their rig - the town now has ZERO Coverage for someone else who did not bring whatever incident on themselves.
Re: Princeton, my understanding is that there was a significant uptick prior to Thanksgiving break, including some clusters related to eating club activities. This drove changes to testing, masking, gathering guidelines that were communicated during the break. This included everyone testing on return, as opposed to the practice of staggered testing, as a precaution. Hence what appears to be a big spike after break is a bit deceptive in the sense that under the typical testing regime those cases would have appeared over the course of a week or so rather than being reported on a single day.
I might be off a bit on some of those details as this is info I got from a neighbor. But I think it’s relevant as it’s clear that a significant portion of the transmission was happening on campus before the break, and likely not a case of students bringing the virus back to campus. Still, if the goal is reducing transmission, this does show that testing plays an important role (assuming, that is, the measures taken are successful in the next few weeks).
Thanks for the additional detail. Most of D’s friends live off campus and are not subject to the level of surveillance testing that those living on campus are. Maybe the lack of follow up to positive surveillance testing is that there hasn’t been as much as in the past? (keeping my fingers crossed here)
This year’s dashboard is much less informative than last year’s which I thought did a pretty good job of providing the big picture.
It does sound to me like RIT is doing a fairly decent job walking the very high, and constantly swaying, COVID 19 tightrope.
The data on shortening isolation for vaccinated people is mounting; this article mentions Cornell’s newer policy, and also mentions Duke near the end(but no details–and so far as a parent we have not heard any). I really hope this catches on. It is increasingly likely that the 10d isolation for vaccinated cases is way out of date.
There is a surge in cases currently at Cornell: 80 student cases in the last 6 days, unfortunately right as finals are starting. I don’t know if they are sequencing, but given its and Tompkins County’s high vaccination rates, it’s logical to wonder whether this is omicron hitting.
Upticks in cases towards the end of the semester really bums me out. What if S19 tests positive and is put in isolation right before he’s supposed to come home for break? His flights are expensive and hard to change plus I wouldn’t want him in isolation during break so I guess we DRIVE to Maine and get him? That’s an 18 hour drive one way or so. I really hope this isn’t anyone’s scenario.
Bowdoin’s original plan (which was scrapped without saying why) was to put vaccinated kids in isolation and then test them at day 2, 4, 6, 8 and they would be out after two negative tests. It was published on their website as the plan but then disappeared with no explanation very early fall semester and was replaced with ten days. I thought it sounded so reasonable. Not sure why they changed it.
Fingers and toes crossed that all the kids get home safely for the holidays.
My D had a closed contact last Fall (prior to vaccines), right during finals. She tested negative and was totally asymptomatic but still had to isolate. Thankfully she was driving home but it was definitely a bummer. We chose not to have her continue isolating at home even though she technically had a couple of days left. (It was just us last year and we all stayed home with her together). Not sure what we would have done if she was a flight away.
i so wish this epidemic came with a plan. all of the constant changes are hard. Here’s an article from atlantic monthly on why they think the 10 day quarantine is now too long based on recent data. Interesting to read; opinion piece of course.
Whether colleges would/should allow infectious students to travel by air is still an issue, regardless of what the length of isolation period should be.
Hmm, I guess it was probably a smart decision for S21’s university to have students remain home following their Thanksgiving break and finish out the semester remotely. They had planned their schedule that way prior to the semester starting so M-W of Thanksgiving week was their study week and then last week they had finals, remotely.
Many kids were also returning home with the flu, including my own, so I was glad that he was able to just stay home, relax and recover at home and get the rest he needed so that he was prepared for his finals.
S19 did have to go back but so far no increase in Covid cases. I didn’t hear as much about flu cases prior to or since Thanksgiving but they do require the flu vaccine prior to returning for second semester. They had flu vaccine clinics weekly starting in mid-September so I’m sure that helped. My son got his in mid-September.
I can’t imagine letting an infectious person on a plane. When kids were isolating into a break last year at Bowdoin, I think they were lucky enough to not live too too far away and parents picked them up. I’m guessing that’s the only way to get out is to release the student to a parent. We will cross that bridge if it comes to that but I would hope they would let the student out with a neg test. Just nine more days until S flies home so fingers crossed!!
Both of our kids had a full two weeks of class left after Thanksgiving and then finals. I’m glad they are there and not remote. D is boosted and Colgate doesn’t surveillance test so I’m not too worried there. It’s just a nail biter for anyone with a student at a school that tests everyone regularly.
Maybe omicron is coming at not such a bad time. Hopefully we will know a lot more about that variant before school starts again for second semester.
My daughter only had one week of classes after Thanksgiving, and labs were already done. I really wish they’d adjust the schedule to be done at Thanksgiving. It was actually one of the only positives last year - being off from Thanksgiving-New Years and avoiding the surge after travel. Duke is still doing surveillance testing and had 48 cases last week. It’s great that the kids aren’t very sick, but it’s just so difficult to manage finals and travel with isolation requirements.
I understand your points, but after missing an entire year on campus last year, my D20 would not want to give up a minute there. She was happy to go back after Tgiving, and still has classes into next week, with finals running until 12/21. She would not have been happy pivoting to remote again after Tgiving. She is boosted, so I’m just going to have faith that she continues to stay covid-negative for the remainder of the semester.
On a daily basis, many are likely flying on who have the virus (or any other virus) and either don’t know it or don’t care/need to get somewhere. If you’re flying anywhere- especially during the winter months, catching something is the norm rather than the exception. Threatening not to let a kid fly home for the holiday is not going to entice them to randomly test (and could seriously contribute to the already staggering cases of mental illness on campuses). Also, I don’t think policing kids taking flights home for the holidays should be up to the college. I can’t imagine they’d want to take that on.
But some colleges test everyone. Those students could get a positive test right before they are supposed to fly home. They would have been put in isolation by the college. What do you propose the college do in that case? Let the student out so they can fly? I don’t think any college would do that. Otherwise why isolate kids at all if the colleges would make an exception like that?