Has to be vaccinated PLUS boosted now.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/your-health/quarantine-isolation.html
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I am fine with covid precautions. I think vaccines are highly effective at reducing serious illness risks. I think quality masks are pretty effective at reducing spread whether for the benefit of others or ones self. I think cloth masks are basically useless especially regarding Omicron.
I donât think weâre escaping exposure. We can certainly put in reasonable mitigation rules but weâre not getting to zero covid. So, if we have a highly vaccinated group, why not accept that weâre going to have some cases and some spread and work to make the most of that?
We are going to have to accept that covid is here to stay. We can mitigate it but we canât lock down forever. Thankfully some colleges are realizing this and allowing for instruction to continue on their highly vaccinated campuses. UMD has a 98.5% vaccination rate (now must be boosted also). Masks are required (kn95 in classroom). Arrival testing is happening. There will still be cases, just like everywhere else in the country. It should be manageable on these highly vaccinated college campuses.
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Parents on our FB group are reporting that some profs are starting their classes remote. No update for Dâs courses yet but I wouldnât be surprised if classes go back and forth between in person and remote. Thankfully Purdue has the tech to do that pretty seamlessly.
Iâve been following how a few colleges, whose winter quarters/spring semesters start in early January, for early indications on how colleges will deal with in-person classes, etc. in the midst of the Omicron wave. Among them are Caltech and Stanford. Both schools are on quarter system and their winter quarter started Jan 3 this week. Caltech was scheduled to have one-week of remote instructions, and Stanford originally two weeks until it changed on Wed this week. Unlike Stanford, Caltech requires students to return to campus by Jan 3 unless they tested positive pre-arrival. Upon arrival, all students were tested every 48 hours during their first week via saliva-based PCR tests which are processed in a lab on campus (the normal requirement is to test twice a week for everyone).
There were apparently dozens of cases (30 individuals are in isolation according to the latest COVID dashboard), but Caltech announced yesterday that in-person instruction will resume on Monday Jan 10 as planned (individual instructors retain ultimate discretion as usual, however). All students are required to wear NIOSH-approved N95 masks, which are provided free of charge, in classrooms.
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Surely, we all donât agree.
My son is also at Cal Poly. Unfortunately, they didnât require a negative test before arrival and they still havenât tested a large portion of the student body. Add to that the fact that positive kids are being sent back to their dorm rooms to wait for further instructions and I think we are going to see an increase in symptomatic cases. I expect they will be issuing a lot of $400 gift cards for kids to leave campus to quarantine.
I agree with all of those points (but I am also sure that some will not follow those guidelines). That also wonât account for the percentage of people who are truly asymptomatic. I have heard of more people in my âvillageâ of family and friends getting Covid in the last 5 weeks than during the previous 20 months of the pandemic combined. Anything short of going all-remote would mean that we will have large spikes of Omicron fueled Covid on college campuses. But my wife has seen the damage up close to high school students and my kids have seen the damage of extreme isolation up close to some of their friends in college. I donât believe that going remote for 2 weeks will stop the eventual spread of Omicron in dorms and on campus, but we will see. My own thoughts revolve around extending College semesters by 2 weeks and expecting Omicron to burn through most college campuses in 4-6 weeks, despite our best efforts. I see some schools cancelling Spring Break to keep students on campus (I donât like that idea, but it is coming). Most students would have to play âcatch upâ at some point in the semester, but things would be much better by mid-March to lighten up on the most draconian Covid measures.
My kid goes to Stanford. Classes for Winter Quarter started Monday January 3, dorms opened Jan 1, most kids who are there now returned Jan 1 or Jan 2. Not everyone is backâsince classes are remote for the first two weeks, returning students are still trickling in. Most of the student 400 positives were from arrival testingâthey took a rapid test as soon as arrived and also what they call a Color PCR test. 300 of the positives this week are faculty and staff. Yes, the word is that they are now out of on campus isolation housing. There are 400 extra freshman on campus this year due to gap kids from 2020âa lot of housing was already in forced triples for the first time.
Here is the latest email from Admin. I liked that they extended the LOA deadline. My kid is taking three Mech E classes this quarterâbecause they involve hands on/machine learning, she has already received confirmation that at least some of those are slated to resume in person classes on Jan 18. My kid is not unhappy at Stanford at all. Has learned to roll with the punches.
Dear Stanford community,
We are writing to share two important updates about our winter quarter at Stanford: first, a phased start for in-person undergraduate classes, and second, an updated isolation strategy for undergraduates who test positive for COVID-19.
Throughout this week we have seen rising numbers of COVID-19 cases as students have been returning to campus. There have now been nearly 400 positive tests among students since last Friday, mostly among students completing their initial testing upon arriving on campus. Students who have tested positive are isolating, some in university-designated isolation spaces and some in their regular assigned housing.
We anticipate further increases in cases as more students arrive. While we have designated isolation spaces available currently, we expect our capacity to be strained in the coming days, particularly at the undergraduate level. The challenge for our staff, who are working tirelessly to keep up with the increasing numbers, also is significant and exacerbated by the nearly 300 positive tests we have seen among faculty, staff and postdocs over the last week.
University leaders from across the academic, student services and public health domains have been assessing the experiences of this week and deliberating on how to provide the smoothest possible on-ramp to in-person instruction. We have concluded it will be valuable to (a) provide an additional week for many undergraduate classes to be available remotely and (b) update our strategy for isolation.
We encourage undergraduates who have not yet returned to campus to review the updates below and consider the optimal timing for traveling back.
Phased resumption of in-person classes
Our resumption of in-person instruction will now be phased:
- All graduate-level courses will resume in-person instruction as scheduled on Tuesday, Jan. 18, at the beginning of Week 3. This includes any graduate-level courses in which undergraduates are enrolled.
- All graduate AND undergraduate courses that must be taught in-person (e.g. labs, design projects, art practice, performance-based) will also resume in-person as scheduled on Tuesday, Jan. 18.
- All other undergraduate courses will resume in-person on Monday, Jan. 24, at the beginning of Week 4.
Undergraduate instructors should be in touch with students to confirm the format of their class for Week 3. Instructors should confer with their dean or chair/director if they have questions.
Classrooms at Stanford have been low-risk environments, thanks to universal masking, our communityâs high level of vaccination and our robust testing program. This phased resumption will help support our isolation situation and allow undergraduates who are in isolation to access classes online for a further period, as appears necessary.
Please be aware that an individual class could still be conducted online for a short period of time after these start dates if the need arises â for instance, if an instructor tests positive, or if large numbers of students within a class test positive and need to isolate, or for other reasons.
Updated undergraduate isolation protocol
For the last several weeks, we have been identifying additional space to support the isolation of COVID-positive students. We also adjusted our protocols recently to allow students to isolate in place in residences where they have a private bedroom and access to a single-occupancy bathroom (which applies to most graduate and professional students and some undergraduates in certain residences).
Still, the increase in positive cases threatens to strain our capacity in the coming days if we stick to the approach of assigning all COVID-positive undergraduates a separate, designated isolation space. We need to further adjust our protocols to allow greater numbers of undergraduates to isolate in their regular assigned housing.
In the coming days, as we reach capacity in our designated isolation spaces and if more students test positive before isolation spaces become available, we may ask COVID-positive undergraduates to isolate in place. Meals will be provided. If we get to this point, we will provide options for their roommates who have tested negative, which may include remaining in place, if the room configuration supports it; or moving to a vacant room or common area in a student residence that has been repurposed as temporary sleeping space; or moving to a COVID-negative friendâs room temporarily; or moving to an off-campus hotel space reserved by the university, if needed and available. Multi-use shared bathrooms also will be signed to avoid overlapping use by COVID-positive and COVID-negative students.
You may ask why COVID-negative roommates in these situations would be asked to temporarily relocate, rather than COVID-positive students. A COVID-negative student has more flexibility to move about the campus, to be around others, to locate study spaces and otherwise continue their routines than a COVID-positive student who is isolating and recovering from symptoms.
More broadly, we hope youâll understand and agree that we are in an unprecedented situation, as the virus is reaching the highest levels seen throughout this pandemic. As has been the case since the beginning, individual actions will to a large degree determine how well we navigate this new challenge. We continue to believe this will be a short-term situation as the omicron wave passes, and we deeply appreciate your flexibility and patience.
We know you will have more questions. Additional details about these adjustments to the isolation process will be available on the Student Affairs website in the coming days.
Additional pointers for students
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Test before you travel: Returning students should take a COVID-19 test before traveling back to Stanford, and delay travel if you receive a positive result.
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Arrive on campus early enough to get through your first Color test before your first class: We continue to have rapid tests available for arriving students, but in addition, youâll need to return to Stanford in time to take your first Color test, and receive the result, before going to your first class. Expect turnaround times of up to 48 hours.
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Airline tickets: For returning students who need to change any flights, many airlines are providing fairly flexible cancelation and rescheduling policies. Contact the Financial Aid Office regarding your financial aid package if travel disruptions present a financial hardship.
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Leaves of absence: The leave of absence deadline for a full refund has been extended to Friday, Jan. 14, at 5 p.m. See the Registrarâs website for details for graduate and undergraduate students.
Appreciation for our staff
Finally, as we update our academic plans, we also want to express appreciation to our Stanford staff workforce. Weâre grateful for your continued contributions, whether you are working on-site or remotely right now. School and unit leaders have provided flexibility in work settings wherever feasible for the first two weeks of January. We look forward to seeing our colleagues gradually return to campus in the second half of January, though we encourage managers to continue offering flexibility through the end of this month.
Thank you to everyone in our community â for your adaptability, for your care for our students and one another and for your continued partnership in meeting with courage and confidence the ever-evolving challenges before us.
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A reasonable and thoughtful plan from Stanford. Letâs hope others follow.
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So you want sick, symptomatic students professors to continue to attend in-person classes? And sick staff to continue to come to work?
@CTTC had it correct above. Some people just want pretend Covid doesnât exist.
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I just feel like everyone is getting it at least here! We may as well just stay in school (k-12) and long as we can man the classes. As long as no one is catching it twice, itâs going to rotate its way through most of us and be done. Any given week, maybe we have a group of teachers out but then the positives from the 10 days prior are back. Same with the students. Many will take their turn being home and learning or teaching remotely (we are set up for that) and then the spike will be over.
So far, we still arenât seeing cases from school. Masks are on and no cases traced back to being caught in the classroom. Of course everyone still eating out and socializing outside of school sans masks so thatâs how itâs spreading.
Wonât the same thing happen at the colleges? A few weeks of some having it and some not and then this one will pass. Colleges can set the expectation that class is in person and set guidelines for what profs should do if they get sick and how they should work with students who are sick. Those guidelines are very different for a 300 person lecture class with TA break outs than it would be for a class with 15 kids total and different again for labs where maybe TAs could step in to help each other.
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I was referring specifically to plans where students are on campus but still attending classes online for a couple of weeks. Under that scenario, Covid will spread rapidly on campus but at least classes can continue.
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Instructors substituting for each other was commonplace when instructors got sick for a day.
But such (often informal) arrangements may be more difficult to arrange when a large number of instructors is quarantining for a week.
Another issue that that, before COVID-19, many people would still go to work or school or take only one sick day off if they felt slightly unwell. Now, people and their employers and schools are on more of a hair trigger âthis might be COVID-19 which might be dangerous* to some peopleâ, resulting in testing and a week of quarantine for a minor sore throat or stuffy nose. So the way people and employers current act in this respect makes it much more likely that severe (temporary) staff shortages will occur now than before.
*Although most indications are that Omicron is mild in most vaccinated people, there is still enough unknown (rate of severe cases, long COVID), and there is still Delta in the air, so many people and colleges (as both employers and schools) are still cautious in the face of the unknowns.
If someone thinks they are sick, they can take a rapid test and then mask to class if negative (which is what anyone else would do outside of a school system). At least at the colleges where boosters are mandatory, no one is quarantining with a sore throat. They would need a confirmation of being positive and then they would isolate.
We have kids in our K-12 who have mild cold like symptoms but we have an optional testing program and there are rapids if they need one. Itâs that whole test to stay in school thing and thatâs what professors and colleges can do too. Now, will there be some sort of honors system where they do this correctly? Maybe not but everyone is masked and hopefully boosted so it shouldnât be a big deal. Letâs keep remembering that these same students and professors are almost 100 percent likely to be socializing without masks outside of the classroom just like people who work in any other industry. Iâm still not really getting why college has to have different rules than the surrounding community.
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Has absolutely nothing to do with pretending Covid doesnât exist. It exists.
It would be interesting to know if the views people hold are consistent with their past views.
Did you always get a flu shot?
Did you get your kids flu shots?
If your child had a stuffy nose or a cough or a headache, did you keep them home or only if they had a fever?
The professors I know arenât indiscriminately socializing without masks, especially now with Omicron. You certainly wonât find them socializing for an hour or so a day in a room full of potentially contagious people.
As for other industries, many are facing severe staff shortages because of omicron, and/or they are cancelling in person meetings and events and temporarily going online and/or remote when possible. A number of entities in California, including schools, have had to shut down or greatly limit access because of worker shortages. I am unaware of any industry that is encouraging covid+ symptomatic workers to continue to show up.
Iâm not getting why colleges wouldnât take the same reasonable steps - like a temporary shift to online meetings - that many responsible businesses are taking.
Yes.
Yes.
We kept them home as long they were potentially contagious. And in times when illnesses were going around, their schools would send symptomatic kids home if the symptoms indicated that they were likely contagious.
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Ive heard several news reports about Covid positive healthcare workers going to work. They canât afford not to anymore.
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I believe itâs covid positive but not symptomatic. For awhile early on, pre-vax, our local mental hospital had that rule until a nurse died
Do you have a college student? Youâre ok with paying tuition for online classes, grab and go food, and remote clubs etc? There is zero reason for all of that if everyone is boosted and wearing masks. Zero.
Grab and go is not a thing in any part of the US right now. Nor is having max numbers for gatherings. Why are some colleges doing these things? If all colleges arenât doing it and the general public is not, then whatâs the point?
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I do.
What Iâm âokayâ with depends on the circumstances. The circumstances over the next few weeks are extraordinary, even by covid standards. The reality is, over the next few weeks, a substantial portion of college students (and professors and staff) will be sick and symptomatic with covid. So, given these circumstances:
- Iâd rather have kids on campus but with a few weeks of online classes and no vulnerable professors teaching to half-empty classrooms.
- Iâd rather that the students who get sick (and many will) be able to continue to take classes, and the only way this can safely happen is online.
- Iâd rather these classes be taught by the professors that are supposed to be teaching them, rather than makeshift fill-ins.
- Iâd rather professors not be required to put their well being at risk when a few weeks of online classes could greatly reduce their risk.
- Iâd rather have grab-and-go lunches than have sick staff, and/or no food service due to staff shortages.
- Iâd rather not have sick students going to class, sick professors teaching class, and sick staff serving food. That would go against all reasonable guidance from health professionals.
Masks arenât as effective against omicron, and not all college kids and staff are are boosted, and the boosters which are now being required wonât be effective for a few weeks after they get the shots. So in the interim, there is very good reason to be cautious for a few weeks.
The Stanford approach seems sound to me. Get the kids boosted and on campus, create a somewhat insular environment, then start online for a few weeks, then phase into in-person classes as the wave (hopefully) wanes.
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