“Concierge team.” 
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What power does Tompkins county health department have to restrict travel? The announcement doesn’t even say it’s limited to air travel. Cornell also stated in that announcement:
It sounded to me infected students could be kept isolated in Ithaca for many days.
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I know! And 300 kids? Many of those must be a flight away.
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Powers granted by law!?
E.g.,
NY Section 2.13 Isolation and Quarantine Procedures
… Whenever appropriate to control the spread of a highly contagious communicable disease, the State Commissioner of Health may issue and/or may direct the local health authority to issue isolation and/or quarantine orders
They are not restricting travel in general, but implicit to an individual being in isolation/quarantine, is that individual 's inability to travel.
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he George Washington University will require a COVID-19 vaccine booster dose for all eligible students, faculty and staff in university-owned or -operated facilities by February 1, 2022.
The booster requirement aligns with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) recommendation and is part of our ongoing efforts to keep the GW community healthy and safe amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
You must receive a booster dose and upload documentation to the medical portal by February 1, 2022, or as soon as you become eligible. Instructions on how to upload documentation are online.
If you do not submit documentation of a booster dose by February 1, 2022, you will be required to be tested for COVID-19 weekly and complete the daily symptom monitoring questionnaire until you are in compliance with this mandate. Returning students who do not show evidence of a booster by March 15, 2022, will not be eligible to register for summer or fall classes. Faculty and staff who do not receive a booster by March 15, 2022, will receive a warning message and subsequent employment actions may take place.
If you currently have a medical or religious exemption to GW’s vaccine requirement, the booster mandate does not apply to you. However, you must continue to follow required campus health protocols.
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469 active student cases at Cornell.
The implications for the entire country are immense; I’m not sure why it isn’t a bigger story.
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because it is expected. These kids all went home, acted like the pandemic was over, and now are being randomly tested even without symptoms, of course they will have a large number of positives. The real question is how many are sick, my guess would be very very few.
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Whatever the “kids” 
did and when, and how sick they are isn’t the point.
If omicron spreads this insanely quickly among a universally fully-vaccinated population, what’s going to happen when it hits the 47% or whatever it is of the US population that isn’t?
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I am not sure why they are reporting only 469 active cases. There were 625 student cases reported from Dec 7th to Dec 12th, so I don’t know why they are not considering Dec 7th cases as active? Perhaps the students were retested as negative, and dropped from the active count?
The combined # of tests conducted Sat & Sun is fewer than a weekday, so perhaps the weekend tests were a targeted result of contact tracing?
I agree that the implications are huge, but I also fear the same is happening on many more campuses, but there aren’t that many still conducting surveillance testing.
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that is a lot of cases at Cornell - and such a hard time near finals and holidays. 
I can only imagine the stress.
my guess though, is that all over - from elementary to high schools to colleges - there are millions of unreported, and unknown, cases. Without routine, mandated testing I’m guessing we will never know.
I base that off something i’m familiar with: a diverse workplace near me has a majority % of its covid cases showing up in vaxxed employees.
They are willingly getting tested with every cough and cold, because a two-week sick leave policy is given for CV that doesn’t dip into vacation like normal sick leave. (thankfully very few are being hospitalized). It’s two paid weeks at home - an incentive for those must work “in the trenches,” to get tested. Without an incentive, and with many dis-incentives at colleges, i don’t know why people who have very mild symptoms would get tested by choice.
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This isnt omicron it is delta, and how sick they are is exactly the point. If there are 400 positive cases in a universally vaccinated population that is tested weekly and none are sick, then this is basically meaningless information. I am sure that there are similarly positive young people (sorry for the kid comment above) at every college in the country) they are just not being tested and identified. In NYC private schools where there is also weekly testing numbers are lower because everyone is still having universal masking and keeping COVID precautions. My experience is that this is not the case for college students who have been traveling the country and gathering.
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Cornell has been conducting mandatory surveillance testing all semester. The current # of active cases is more than the total # of active cases for the spring 2021 semester.
They confirmed an Omicron case this weekend, and I imagine there will be others, once sequencing has been completed.
More info here:
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interesting! I hope that the schools encourage better behavior before the return in the winter or it will be even higher
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I understand your concern, but Cornell is really just seeing exactly what Duke saw in August as the seasonality of Covid moved from the southern states north. I had to go back to look as I couldn’t recall the exact number, last week in August Duke reported 364 cases - I don’t think there was another southern university doing surveillance testing of asymptomatic students at the time. It was also higher than the entirety of the spring semester (or close) and well, well above the number that moved the school to a shelter in place for spring of 2021.
For those that don’t recall, that was when the southern states had extremely high transmission numbers and it was right after move in everyone came from all over the country/world. I was surprised to see Duke basically ride it out and continue their indoor mask requirement, and a handful of classes went online, and the cancelled a big welcome party, but the vast majority of things were business as usual.
They road the wave believing their data on lack of transmission to faculty and staff and the kids were 98% vaccinated and wouldn’t get very sick. Their cases this week - 30 and finals end today. I haven’t always agreed with everything they’ve done. But this semester has gone way, way better than I though in August.
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I’ll bet you a $100 donation to the charitable organization of your choosing that this is ultimately determined to be an omicron outbreak. They’ve already found it there in surveillance sequencing; there’s no other explanation that makes any sense. The undergraduate adults were partying and gathering with enthusiasm all semester, not just after returning from Thanksgiving.
Whether they get sick doesn’t matter. If it spreads this rapidly, it is going to be a disaster for the at-risk unvaccinated, the vulnerable vaccinated, and the already overstressed and burned-out health-care system.
totally agree with the partying, the difference in my mind is that they were partying with others when they went home, including their siblings and my young people like mine who goes to a school that only tests if you are sick enough to ask for a test.
And totally agree with you about the second point. That is why we are not traveling, continuing to routinely mask and keeping up all covid precautions.
All finals are being moved online as of noon, as the University moves to alert level red — indicating high risk
The alert level does not necessarily mean students should rush home — instead, Cornell advises that students obtain a negative COVID-19 test result before any travel.
“Students who have tested negative within the past 48 hours and wish to leave campus are welcome to do so,” Pollack wrote.
However, if students have not received a negative test in the past 48 hours, they should schedule a supplemental test as soon as possible and stay in Ithaca until receiving the results.
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“Just last evening our COVID-19 testing lab team identified evidence of the highly contagious Omicron variant in a significant number of Monday’s positive student samples.”
As predicted.
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They updated the article since I posted! I had not seen that but wrote the same yesterday. As they have more time to sequence, more Omicron will emerge.
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Then that 47% share will drop - one way, or the other, I fear…