Many in the US would rather live free (of “vaccine passports”) and die…
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BC is walking this back. Despite a quote from a Boston College official in the article, BC is telling parents that boosters are not being mandated (yet). I thought it was strange that neither parents nor students received any communication from BC regarding boosters.
There has already been one vaccination clinic on campus with another planned before the end of finals so it seems there is strong demand among the students for the booster shot whether mandated or not.
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Heard that Middlebury just went to online classes and exams for rest of semester and grab & go food, and UPenn just ended social gatherings other than small masked study groups (cancelled some club events and parties etc). So deflating at the end of the semester, but they both saw very rapid increases in cases.
All these cases and for most college campuses over 95% are vaccinated. I guess vaccines keep people from getting seriously ill, but not from getting covid as we had hoped 6 months ago. Though I wonder how many boostered are getting it, and is that why many colleges are trying to get everyone to do so. It might be difficult as in some states its now very hard to find an appointment, similar to last spring. Those are the colleges that have to offer the booster “onsite”.
In Portugal they are now making those with the new omicron varient isolate for 14 days “to be sure”. As it seems to be a milder and shorter version, not sure why beyond the previous 10 days. Hopefully data soon.
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Our NY upstate county has a 6.9% positivity rate and has 178 positive cases on a 7 day rolling average as of 12/7. We have several colleges within a 30 mile radius to include Hamilton College, Utica College, Colgate, SUNY Poly, MVCC, HCCC, and MWPAI. Although all of these schools have high vaccination rates, our community’s vaxx rate is only in the upper 50 %. I can share that our current hospital cases is much higher than last year’s and patients occupy more than 70% of our beds. Average age of hospitalized with covid19 is about 60s and 71% are unvaccinated. NY Gov. Hochul sent 10 National Guards to help with nurse staffing but currently will not allow our healthcare system to divert other services to other facilities in Syracuse to help lessen the burden on us. Add to this, our labs are crucial to all what’s happening but is also critically and severely short staff as well and we are open 24/7 testing covid and many others tests including providing blood products to our patients. We are a trauma and stroke center. For the past week and a half our NEDOCS score daily is in the 200s each from two hospital campuses.
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I’m sorry to hear of your son’s college experience. My eldest son is currently a junior at the College of Arts. He is very introvert but has gone out of his shell this semester. He seems to be enjoying his time at the campus. I will pick him up tomorrow after his finals today. I wish your son best of luck and kudos to him for graduating early.
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Just released: UK Omicron tests show booster vaccine offers 75% protection against symptomatic Covid.
UK Omicron tests show three vaccine doses are key
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Also in Portugal, (where 98% of eligible population is fully vaxxed) highest CASE count (all Delta) since January 2021, but deaths and hospitalizations very low. Cases don’t matter in a highly vaxxed population as long as hospitalizations are low. But all policy seems to still be case based. Not a good story to encourage vaccination.
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This is great, but symptomatic covid is not our national and worldwide benchmark for restrictions. Testing positive is. Everyone who gets exposed to omicron is going to test positive.
It funny, even the article mixed the two issues.
"Early analysis of UK Omicron and Delta cases showed the vaccines were less effective at stopping the new variant.
However, a third booster dose significantly increased protection to around 75%."
“Stopping the new variant” to me reads getting infected (testing positive). So this reads booster increases protection from testing positive… but that’s not what the next paragraph says:
However, the third dose increased the protection against getting Covid symptoms to between 70 and 75%
Symptomic Covid is the actual measure. Not testing positive. Everyone is going to test positive… this is double as contagious as chicken pox.
There lies the issue for colleges that are surveillance testing or even contact tracing. All of those positives going into isolation regardless of symptoms. When will there be any changes to that? I concerned that changes to those rules will come very very slowly.
Not arguing your point, though at least initially a “layered” response is a sensible approach:
With a new variant, testing positive is all one has to make decision in the early stages, especially when infections appear to also spread among vaccinated!
Then it takes a few weeks before the vaccine’s protection against illness becomes clearer. Only then can you refine policies, knowing that you won’t have to worry about those nn% of the vaccinated population to completely overwhelm your health-care abilities.
Even then you’ll still have to decide if/how much you care about further burning out health care workers, who deal with those who choose to inflict the illness upon themselves.
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And that’s why omicron’s appearance at this time could be somewhat helpful for colleges that have to figure out policy. Hopefully we will have good info from the U.K. about transmission and severity while our kids are on break and then colleges can make adjustments if necessary.
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Often, when something is done for safety and/or security, it is hard to back off of it, unless it is obviously too expensive, due to the perception of becoming less safe and/or secure (whether or not that is actually the case, or if the something is no longer needed because something else now results in the desired safety and/or security).
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Cornell is back at “yellow” status after a verified 58 new student positives Wednesday and likely at least twice that many yesterday. No word on whether it is omicron but on a 97% vaxed campus that had for the last couple months gotten it down to 4-5 cases a week, it seems very likely.
Unfortunately this is our new reality and stated as much like last year. Wearing masks through winter will be and should be our new normal to at least soften the flu virus (in the future). Other variants will come and go. Most of this could of been reduced greatly but won’t go in that direction.
On college campuses these kids need to do better with masking indoors in crowded areas. If not, the cycle won’t end (on college campuses)… As much as you think your kids are, their not. Remind them. At some point they will listen.
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per earlier discussion about covid positive persons traveling, even the CDC breaks it own rules of isolation
I’m all for masking rules and I’m generally a rule follower but that story is over the top. Almost reads like something from The Onion. Is that guy going to really spread his Covid if all are masked? I’m in a middle school every day where someone could have Covid and many of the younger students aren’t vaccinated. We’ve had a few more cases lately where, no doubt, kids were in school with Covid before they got a positive test.
I think what we’re seeing is not someone “travelling on a full train”, but rather someone being “moved” from the terminal. Naturally, any first-responder will always be gloved, and in such cases don a respirator. Nothing unusual.
“Outbound” protection will be 70-90%, if the patient was wearing a surgical mask or was given a N95/KN95 to wear, and presumedly the public themselves were all properly masked up as they always should in crowded places.
Having said that, I do agree from a public-messaging standpoint: They could have kept that one cart empty, even if the actual risk was minimal during a brief ride back from a terminal.
It’s the kind of story that unnecessarily plays into the hands of those who resist precautionary requirements.
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Cornell confirms omicron.
https://covid.cornell.edu/updates/20211211-additional-restrictions.cfm
Thanks - it also elaborates on procedures if infected in the final week:
…please depart as soon as you complete your last in-person final . Don’t risk getting COVID-19, which could require you to isolate until cleared by the Tompkins County Health Department for travel. If you are currently COVID-19 positive, you will need to discuss departure plans with the Cornell COVID Concierge Team