No that is incorrect. GW has never tested students multiple times a week; they test students every two weeks if they are vaccinated and boosted which is a requirement of all students, staff and faculty.
The GW email we received said that they are trying to make sure that graduation plans continue as planned bc right now the numbers of kids testing positive is increasing quite a bit since they removed the indoor masking policy.
I’m not a fan of masks if someone is vaxed and boosted but if the numbers are going up I can see the concern and why they are temporarily returning to an indoor mandate on them. Only a few weeks of semester remain.
I have a freshman so I don’t follow graduation plans closely. I do know that there is a main ceremony outdoor at the National Mall (I can only imagine how cool that is!) but….I think that some of GW’s individual colleges must have some ceremony of sorts, too. And I would think those are indoors.
ETA: I looked up the commencement schedule and many colleges have indoor ceremonies indoors in auditoriums and theaters. (The outdoor National Mall one would be the one I’d most be wanting to attend. )
You answered your own question, at least in part. Immunocompromised kids need to go to class too. So do vulnerable faculty. And staff needs to go to work. A high infection rate on a residential campus means a significant portion of students won’t be able to attend class, staff will be short, faculty may not be able to teach.
Residential college campuses function more normally when infection rates are low. When the circumstances justify, masks are a cheap and effective way to help maintain that normalcy.
The infection rate during phase I of Omicron seemed to happen masked or not. boosted or not. Just that those vaccinated had lesser disease. Those that are vulnerable still can wear KN95, and I am not opposed to classroom masking. Do we really think that college kids are properly masking in the dorms or in their apartments? Also masks can come off during eating and drinking. There are also treatments available now. AT one point do we start to treat this as we do other illnesses. While my Daughter was at GW she got sick with both Flu and Mono. For that noone moved her to an isolation dorm , or tested her for it, (she went to Dr herself), or tracked how many students that January had the flu. When do we get to that point with Covid with vaccines and treatments? As far as graduation goes, the mall graduation for GW is outdoors. The individual school ones are indoors, and I could see asking for masks for the large indoor gathering if cases are higher. Yeah, and for my D last May, it was a joke and done on zoom.
At some point I thought there tested more than every other week.
CDC COVID Data Tracker indicates that unvaccinated people were 2.4 times more likely than vaccinated people, and 3.5 times more likely than boosted people, to test positive in January (back half of the Omicron BA.1 wave).
Responding to the same type of data that had lead to the removal of mask requirements earlier in the year, Barnard College now reinstated in-door mask requirement on April 6, and the rest of Columbia University follows their lead on April 11:
Dear Barnard Community,
As we wrote in our message on March 4th, we are using a data-informed approach to guide Barnard’s campus and will continue to monitor and remain agile as needed. This disease continues to behave unpredictably. While rates of hospitalization for COVID-19 are the lowest they have been since the pandemic started, we have seen a small spike in our infection rates on campus. We are seeing an increase in symptomatic cases of COVID-19, in individuals testing positive for COVID-19 via self-administered home antigen testing and through our testing program, which currently includes both surveillance and voluntary testing.
While the city as a whole is seeing some increase in cases, transmission rates in Manhattan are two times those in any other borough.
Based on this information, Barnard is taking the following steps and making the following recommendations:
Masking: Masking will be required in all classrooms, the dining hall, library, at any college-sponsored events, gatherings or study spaces. We will re-evaluate this requirement in two weeks as we continue to follow our COVID-19 infection rates. Outside of this, and in the context of this increase in infections, we encourage our community to mask when there are groups of people gathering. There is evidence from the CDC that you are less likely to test positive for COVID-19 if you always wear a mask in indoor public settings. Masks not only prevent transmission of COVID-19 and other common viruses like the flu and colds, but they also help to protect those in our community who cannot be vaccinated or are immunocompromised.
Wear the best-fitting and most protective mask that you can such as an N95 or KN95, which remain available to all in the testing center.
And Columbia University writes:
We write to update you on the COVID-19 status in New York City and where we are in terms of public health measures at the University. Based on the current situation and in an abundance of caution we will require wearing of non-cloth masks in classrooms beginning Monday morning April 11, 2022. This mandatory masking policy applies to classrooms only and is expected to remain in place for the few remaining weeks of our spring semester. As has been our policy all year, instructors have the option to remove their masks while teaching. Current policies on masking in all other settings continue unchanged.
We remain in low-risk or green status based on Columbia’s COVID-19 monitoring plan and so does New York City based on its designated risk levels. Over the past few weeks there has been an uptick in the number of COVID-19 cases in New York City and not surprisingly in the percent positivity in our own surveillance testing program. Reassuringly, this has not been associated as of yet with a commensurate increase in hospitalizations in New York City, an important and more reliable metric of the status of the pandemic.
My D finishes up her last final this week, officially closing out my thoughts/worries for this academic year. All in all, it went much better than I had thought it might. She somehow avoided Covid, even as most of her friends caught it at various times during the year and had a very vibrant and social on-campus experience.
She’s moving back off campus for next year, so is likely to be less impacted should her school revert to more austere mitigation strategies as new waves roll in. That said, I’ll keep my eye out for the College in the 2022-2023 Academic Year & Coronavirus thread that is all but inevitable
Now masking is optional for most universities. However, some schools now are mandating the 2nd booster on these healthy college students. Most of them have 3 shots already.
CDC is recommending the booster not mandating. A number of studies now show the risk of myocarditis from a COVID-19 vaccination in young men ages 12-29.
That page says “Please note: Compliance with the bivalent booster requirement does not yet affect employment status, access to facilities or access to services at UC Davis.”. Seems “required” but not enforced, at least for now.
For younger men the risk of dose 2 of the Moderna primary (which has twice the mRNA as the Moderna booster) was higher, but it was 97 per million, or 0.0097%. So younger men concerned about myocarditis may want to choose the Pfizer booster instead of the Moderna booster.
Thanks for the advice. The b-vax shouldn’t be mandated. Boosters are unnecessary for healthy people under the age of 50. The UK and Denmark do not even allow the bivalent booster for healthy people under 50 because they know it is unnecessary, redundant, and risky.
Actually, UK and Denmark recommend the bivalent booster for a variety of different healthy young people including group home workers, nurses, doctors, other medical and social service workers, those in close contact with high risk individuals, and pregnant women.
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