We just got our first email message about Covid precautions for Fall semester from Purdue. Purdue President Mitch Daniels on Fall 2022 Protect Purdue Protocols - YouTube. Basically the same as last semester but with the addition of waste water testing. Students are encouraged to register vaccine status with the universities as fully vaxxed students are treated differently in terms of surveillance testing.
Anyone else hear anything about their Fall semesters yet?
It will be interesting to see what the colleges required. Some of the schools required students to be vaccinated and boosted by last January. Are they going to ask for a 2nd booster? With Omicron affecting those who are boosted/vaxed how does this play out? Will schools still have isolation areas? I dont think we will hear anything from most schools until early Late July/early Aug, as the virus seems to be a moving target.
Currently, one does not qualify for a second booster(4th dose) unless they are over 50 or have underlying conditions. With the Omicron-targeted vaccine in the works, that will change, but not likely before the start of fall semester.
Here is the update from RIT.
Vaccination
Masking
Move-in within RIT Housing
Classes/classrooms
Testing
Isolation/quarantine
This thread never seemed to have taken off. From what I have been hearing with many colleges not having isolated housing, and carrying on almost pre-covid (some do have mask requirements still) , there are quite a number of cases. One parent heard its 10% of the school. I only follow two schools, but what are others seeing? Is Covid still an issue? Most parents are concerned about their students missing class, and not having a zoom option.
My son’s school seems to have completely moved back to precovid behavior. It seems that freshman orientation week was back to normal, dorm move in was back to normal, no masks required anywhere, no restrictions on numbers of people or distancing. My guess is this thread has gone quiet because no one has anything to say.
Purdue’s dashboard has been taken down and they aren’t doing surveillance testing other than through wastewater. There are a limited number of isolation rooms but I haven’t heard anything since this posting: Information for Fall 2022
Let’s hope and pray it may stay that way🙏
It will be interesting if colleges require the new boosters that were approved yesterday.
Both my kids are at LACs, no dashboards at either. Pretty much normal pre-covid practices at one (profs can require masks if they want to). The other one is requiring masks indoors for the first couple of weeks of school, along with grab and go meals only (both practices seem like outliers, and unnecessary).
D’s school, which was pretty conservative regarding Covid the last couple years has taken down their dashboard, is no longer testing on campus (though they do provide home tests to students), masking is optional (unless a professor requests), no more isolation housing (if you test positive you are asked to isolate for 5 days at home and mask for 5 days after though there are some isolation rooms for immunocompromised students if their roommate tests positive). They did hand kids 2 tests when they arrived and asked for them to test right away and then again 5 days later.
Had their first normal orientation week since 2019. Seems to have been a pretty big spike in cases about a week after freshmen arrived. I suspect there will continue to be a decent number of cases the next week or two. But it’s hard to say since there is no tracking, it’s just word of mouth.
There has been some grumbling among parents, especially when their kiddo’s roommate tests positive, but for the most part I think people are just happy they are having a pretty normal start of the year.
The school is requiring the flu shot this fall. Too soon to have heard anything yet on boosters.
S22’s college is fully open in person, masks recommended but not required. Vaccination (1st course, but not booster) is required. It remains to be seen if they will require the bivalent booster when it becomes available. School policy is you have to stay home (dorm) and test if you have any illness symptoms. And they have free tests & masks available at various locations. Classes don’t start until late September, so we’ll see if anything has changed by then.
Considering that there is a penalty for testing positive, but no requirement or incentive to test, it would seem like students are unlikely to test at all. Meaning that viral spread will be essentially uncontrolled other than the partial effect of vaccination, even though there is lip service to the idea that COVID-19 may be serious (the penalty for testing positive).
I.e. just like the rest of society.
Yep. This. At my son’s large Southern University, there is no vaccination mandate, no mask mandate, no monitoring, no mandatory reporting. Even testing is hard to come by. Of course, a whole bunch of students got Covid the first week or two of school, including my son (who is vaxed and boosted). I had sent rapid tests with him to school, so when he developed respiratory symptoms, he tested immediately. He called student health and was told to isolate in his room for five days. However, the college had no plan to get meals to quarantined students and he didn’t want to expose his roommate, so we decided to bring him home for the 5 days. He did get a zero on one assignment in one course, but the other professors were understanding. Several other students reported that they were penalized for missing quizzes when they have been in quarantine, which seems really unfair to those trying to do the right thing. The idea is basically don’t test, don’t tell.
Yeah, so far it seems that students are testing and isolating and generally doing what they are supposed to, at least from what I’m hearing. But, it’s definitely likely there are some who aren’t. D got covid for a second time (last time was in February) despite being vaxxed and boosted. She has her own room in a suite so she liked that she got her comforts of “home” but didn’t have to feel stressed about infecting a roommate. Last time she had to go to an isolation room and had her meals delivered. Being isolated was rough for her. This time she could go get her meals (quickly and masked) and she tried to go during more quiet times and ordered food a lot. She said it was hard picking up her own meals because it was the first week of classes and people she hadn’t seen all summer kept wanted to talk to her and she’d have to keep them away as much as possible. She felt the biggest difference is people cared a LOT less about the possibility of catching it from her this time around.