I hate to say this but I completely agree with you and have felt this way all along. Young people engage in the riskiest behavior of all and are the most responsible for the exponential spreading and super spreading events that have occurred. Yes, we need to protect the elderly and vulnerable but if these people are not spreading it because they’re vaccinated, then they will also not be spreading it to that population. I asked my mother’s patient advocate about this and she said there was a study done on this issue and it did show this as well but no one wanted to go that route as more reports went the other direction. Now we have the variants and all these young people not vaccinated and still a huge percent of the population not vaccinated. I did hear that 2.9 vaccines were given in one day which is amazing and that there is way less hesitancy than originally so we are making breakthroughs but this is now a race against the variants. Just under 10% of the population is fully vaccinated that’s huge!!
But states like Florida which is were a huge number of spring breakers are vacationing and more coming weekly, things aren’t so good as they’re last on vaccine administration.
I don’t think so, @getcollege19. The differences appear more based on individual colleges than the state differences between the 2. My college student has been in person in class in NC all year, and says school is about 85% back to normal now. She and all her friends have been vaccinated, and it looks like graduation will be relatively normal, though held in a stadium. May very well be masked, but I regard that as a quite minor difference.
Rice announced that they would make no changes to their policies after the governor’s announcement. They also got 800+ kids vaccinated when power went out during the recent storm and they needed to get shots in arms and today there is a lot of talk of a huge vaccination event that many were able to get appointments for. Curious to see what happens on campus when a decent percentage are fully vaccinated.
Just curious, what was the appalling behavior? Was it local people being mean in certain ways to the students, being nasty to them, etc, or was it the kids behaving in appalling ways? This is not a facetious question, I genuinely don’t have the information to understand your point.
As for me, my kids go to school where they are extraordinarily concerned about covid; the restrictions are extreme. While this sort of aligns with my morals, I do believe these kids should take it all very seriously and understand their impact on the larger community, I am beginning to feel very sad they aren’t at school somewhere more wild . One of my children is struggling mightily with the online classes, all happening inside their bedroom with no option to go to a library or anywhere else, they are not cut out for this loneliness. In their prior 2 years, they would say college was a 10+, but this semester is close to a zero. They sound so incredibly downtrodden. They made the best of it in the fall, doing a great internship but now back at school and it really sounds utterly depressing. I know there are AWFUL things happening with people losing lives or hard-earned businesses, so I have perspective. But it still breaks a mom’s heart to hear her usually joyful child sound so dejected and like they might fail classes for the first time ever. So now I’m like, College, my god, why can’t you open libraries?? Why can’t you offer outdoor curling or corn hole or firepits or some outdoor social events? Why can’t you figure out ANYTHING to help these kids? Wishing my kids went to school in Texas, honestly. Although to be honest, he still has a decent social life available to him, it’s really the working-in-the-bedroom-too-much-time-in-one-place-with-no-separation-between-work-and-home, I think. He just really misses in person classes, and time in the library to do work, etc. Living in a city with friends around does enable social aspects. It’s really the academic side that is not living up to expectations.
By the way, other child at same school is having a BLAST somehow. Just teaches me that different people can adapt to same circumstances differently, and it’s worth having compassion for people who react differently than YOU might, we are all different. Plus they have VERY different workloads right now, which is always a difference among students, even at same school. There are too many factors that account for their different experiences to explain, but I am reminded to keep an open mind about how people are reacting to the circumstances. Currently feeling sad for my unhappy kid… But hopeful that next year will be great again. He could not adore his school more, at least years 1 & 2 were incredible…hoping next year will be the same. But really amazed thinking there are a ton of kids out there where school is basically normal for them!
Completely agree! Our son found that aspect very difficult last semester. He still has hybrid classes this semester but now has 7 hours in class each week instead of 3. He has also made the decision to seek out different study areas in the library and other buildings. It’s fortunate that his university allows this.
Studying in a variety of spaces rather than being cooped up in his room for hours upon hours every week has made all the difference to his well-being. He also remains optimistic that things will return to almost normal in Fall 2021 which is helping to keep his spirits higher.
I was referring to local people being nasty to students. In the two weeks my D was in CH before she re-let her off campus place and came home, she had two different experiences with locals (strangers) coming up to her at stores within 6 ft. (while she was masked and had been social distancing), asking her if she was a student and basically saying they should not be there. Also, got nasty glares from locals. There were also locals posting things like “go back where you come from” on students social media threads and ranting at UNC on social media for bringing kids back, etc. So, 10 ten days into Fall semester UNC shut-down, went all on-line and told kids who just moved in two weeks before to leave town. Meanwhile the other Carolina (that she declined 11th hour for UNC) stayed in-person and made it work.
We are somewhere in the middle of the “COVID=Contagion and we’re all gonna die to It’s just a cold and I refuse to wear a mask” scale, but probably a little further away from the Contagion end. I am also in the “we really need to think about what we are doing to our youth with this” camp. IMHO the depression and suicide rates among our youth, not to mention giant academic fallout, should be more concerning to society than it seems to be.
I’m sorry to hear your child is struggling. Mine are too, but not academically per se. Both have managed to keep up academically, but older one has had to work harder at it because in-person learning and structure works better for her. I can just tell that they are unhappy. D21 is frustrated with her school and the district because they pretty much have done Zero for Seniors. Her PT job is stressing her on top of 4 APs and other classes + ECs + college application/decision stuff, but she refuses to quit or even take a vacation from it because it’s human interaction in-person. The older one is hanging on for the most part, but has occasional breakdowns over how her college experience isn’t a college experience. She was having a great experience at college pre-COVID. Heck, I’m in a funk.
Yes, I really hope there is some level of normalcy in Fall and praying that UNC does not pull the same “we’re going to take an off-ramp 10 days in” again.
I am in Texas. Yes, I have heard of a handful of Texas counties (2 I know of for sure) that have opened up vaccine appointments to everyone 18 and older, but that is not the case in most of Texas. My parents and step-father live in rural East Texas. All are over 75. Despite being on every waitlist they could sign up for within an hour drive since early January, they all three finally got appointments and got their first shots on Monday and Wednesday of this week. This was the first available to them. I live in Dallas County and am 52 with 2 co-morbidities. Again, after being on multiple waitlists since early January and checking the websites daily of pharmacies once they started getting shipments and setting appointments, I was able to get a pharmacy appointment and got my first shot on Tuesday of this week. Interestingly, on Tuesday and Wednesday, I got notified by two different county mass registration systems that I could sign in and make an appointment. Most of the mass registration sites around here declare on their website that they are currently setting appointments for people over 65 plus either 55 with at least one comorbidity or 50 with one comorbidity.
Despite the governor lifting the mask mandate, I don’t expect much to be different. Dallas County is still reporting 400-500 new cases a day and has announced that you still must wear a mask in county buildings. I will continue to wear my mask in public, work remotely from home 7 out of every 8 business days, and order groceries from Target that they bring out and put in my trunk. Almost all of my friends and acquaintances in Dallas County are saying they will not patronize businesses that do not require masks—I am seeing very few people in my county say they are happy about lifting the mask mandate. On the other hand, I see a great deal of rural Texans celebrating. Angry that school districts are still choosing to require masks. Can’t wait for everything to open up 100% on Wednesday…in the middle of Spring break…when only a small percentage (about 8%) of Texans are fully vaccinated. I feel that by the end on March a much larger percent will be fully vaccinated—I wish the governor would have waited 20 or 30 more days and see where things stood.
My sophomore daughter is in California and does not expect to be allowed to get vaccinated for at least a couple of more months—hoping for May. She and her pod that she is living with in California have taken COVID precautions very seriously. They all quarantined and then got tested before moving in together. They send two grocery shopping at 7:00 am on Sunday mornings to avoid crowds and order ahead online for pickup of as much groceries as they can. They wear masks everywhere outside the house, yard and car—even when they take walks/walk to the beach. Her university has not allowed most undergrads on campus since March 2020, and almost all classes are fully remote—I really wish they had allowed the students to come live on campus as planned in either Fall or Winter quarter and at least tried. I’d like to think that my daughter and her pod are indicative of the many, and not the few, and Stanford students could have made it work, as did many of their counterparts. I also realize that Santa Clara county mandates were among the most restrictive in the nation at times, and that had to factor in.
So, have those who are older or have underlying conditions already vaccinated in NC? (Or in TX for that matter where 18 year olds are getting vaccinated?) Neither Illinois or Maine are anywhere close to vaccinating college students and, at least in Maine, college faculty isn’t part of the K-12 education group that is now up for vaccines. The state is all age based.
The degree of covid absolutism varies widely among campuses even in the same geographic area; some tolerate some risk, some tolerate a lot of risk, some appear unwilling to accept any. I expect that approach will continue for the future, regardless of vaccine, as variants will continue to occur.
In Illinois many college students are able to get vaccinated in group 1b. They’ve now opened up to camp counselors and other front line workers so for all those kids that are going to be counselors this summer they’re able to get the vaccine. My daughters have a lot of friends at UIUC that have easily been able to receive the vaccine for a variety of reasons.
In the Texas counties that are now vaccinating anyone 18 and over, per the press reporting, county officials state they regularly have supply exceeding demand, and thus have begun vaccinations for anyone. They also encouraged those in nearby cities willing to drive the 90 minutes or so to consider making the trip to get a shot. I know healthy high school seniors who are making the trip. Like everywhere, I am sure the supply is uneven throughout the state, but I think health officials are right in prioritizing getting shots in every arm asap.
I do not know why NC moved onto other priority levels, but I do know many college students working on campus have success in getting vaccinated there, though some have had to drive a bit to get a shot. I assume the same uneven degree of distribution.
Hmmmm. So that’s probably not a good thing in either state. Maybe means that the people in these earlier groups are choosing to not get vaccinated. Otherwise,why would supply be larger than demand already? That’s not the case in most states. Aren’t states getting vaccines proportionate to their population? If NC or TX are moving down their lists that quickly, that means the vaccines meant for the earlier groups are not being used.
. One of my children is struggling mightily with the online classes, all happening inside their bedroom with no option to go to a library or anywhere else, they are not cut out for this loneliness. In their prior 2 years, they would say college was a 10+, but this semester is close to a zero. They sound so incredibly downtrodden. They made the best of it in the fall, doing a great internship but now back at school and it really sounds utterly depressing. I know there are AWFUL things happening with people losing lives or hard-earned businesses, so I have perspective. But it still breaks a mom’s heart to hear her usually joyful child sound so dejected and like they might fail classes for the first time ever. So now I’m like, College, my god, why can’t you open libraries?? Why can’t you offer outdoor curling or corn hole or firepits or some outdoor social events? Why can’t you figure out ANYTHING to help these kids? Wishing my kids went to school in Texas, honestly. Although to be honest, he still has a decent social life available to him, it’s really the working-in-the-bedroom-too-much-time-in-one-place-with-no-separation-between-work-and-home, I think. He just really misses in person classes, and time in the library to do work, etc. Living in a city with friends around does enable social aspects. It’s really the academic side that is not living up to expectations.