Is anyone else wondering what schools with a significant Chinese population will do about kids returning home for march break? Has anything like this happened before?
I’ve been thinking the exact same thing…ugh
It’s a huge deal for colleges right now, as many of them are beginning the second semester as we speak. Hopefully they’ll come up with best practices before spring break? Our BS actually has a long weekend coming up, and while I don’t think anyone was planning to go to Asia for 4 days some parents were definitely planning on visiting. For spring break I would assume they have to keep a dorm open so the kids who won’t be able to go home can stay.
Isn’t March break for boarding schools at least a month away? I’d save the worry for now. A lot could change between now and then.
@417WHB
We also have a long weekend and last time I know parents came so that is also a puzzle, although less so. Seems to me schools need to start planning now especially if part of a plan is keeping dorms open. I imagine housing and feeding kids takes more than a few days of planning.
I wouldn’t expect the schools to keep dorms open for 3 weeks of Spring Break. Likely they would find family and friends or other student’s families to host.
There are 1.4 billion people in China. 11 million in Wuhan. And 81 deaths from this new coronavirus so far. (Total documented cases so far is 2,800 worldwide, but that might be undercounted.)
Meanwhile, there have been 15 Million cases of the seasonal flu worldwide.
Here in the US, there have been 140,000 hospitalizations from seasonal flue and 8,200 deaths, 54 of them children.
Hmmm…
The fear is a pandemic. The 1918-20 Spanish Flu killed 3-5% of the world’s population. We have better treatments now than we did theN but even today if we were to experience anything like that our medical systems would be overwhelmed.
The panic sets in fast. A friend of my older kid is at one of the UC campuses and one of her floor mates came down with what is likely just a flu, but since she is Chinese kid who went home for winter break the entire dorm and at this point the whole parents’ FB page is blowing up with people talking about quarantine for all the kids who went to China for the break. Meanwhile they have been back to school for almost a month so they should be past the incubation period to begin with. But so many people are freaked out.
From my kids school:
As you may have heard, reports about an outbreak of a novel coronavirus in the city of Wuhan, Hubei Province, China have been in the news recently. The recent outbreak has caused several hundred confirmed cases in China, a number across Asia, and at least two in the United States.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued a Level 3 Travel Notice recommending against all nonessential travel to Wuhan, China due to an ongoing outbreak of respiratory illness caused by this novel coronavirus, which can be spread from person to person. The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared a health emergency in China, but has not classified the outbreak a global health emergency. According to these various sources, as of this writing, the immediate public health risk in the United States is “low.”
For the most up-to-date information visit the CDC page on Novel Coronavirus. Information is also available through the World Health Organization.
As recommended by XXXXXXXX Director of Health Services, XXXXXXX, the guidelines for prevention are commonsensical—e.g., exercising basic prevention protocols appropriate to any flu-like virus (washing one’s hands regularly; staying in private quarters if ill; minimizing the spread of germs by not sharing personal items). These are practices we regularly employ during this time of year as the flu is certainly a concern on any school campus.
With particular respect to the XXXXXXX community, we have taken the following additional steps:
As noted above, we have shared internally with students and staff a continual reminder of good practices such as regular hand washing, covering the nose and mouth when sneezing, and reporting to the Health Center if anyone has a cough, fever, and flu/cold symptoms. We have also emphasized that students not share utensils, drinks, chapsticks, etc.
We have suspended all visits to the Admissions office from anyone living in mainland China and Hong Kong. While we have not had anyone from Hubei Province visit the Admission office in several weeks, we are taking this extra precaution as a temporary, conservative measure.
We are in the process of adding extra “hand sanitizing stations” across campus to encourage regular hand washing by increasing the level of accessibility of instant hand sanitizer to all members of our community.
We have asked our maintenance and cleaning staff to focus on high traffic/high touch areas such as doorknobs and surfaces that individuals may touch on a frequent basis to be sure that extra attention is being placed on the cleaning of these hard surfaces on campus.
Although we have asked students to practice good prevention behaviors, I would also like to ask that all families reinforce these strategies in conversation with your children, and instruct them to come to the Health Center for evaluation if they are feeling ill.
If the situation heightens in the coming weeks, we may consider additional steps to ensure the safety of our campus. For example, as we get closer to spring break, we may consider restrictions on travel back to the XXXXXX campus from areas that have coronavirus activity.
This is a fluid situation that is evolving over time, and we will continue to monitor the progress of this coronavirus and adjust as necessary to be sure that we are taking all precautions necessary to keep everyone in our community safe and healthy.
If you have any questions, I am happy to talk anytime.
Warm regards,
Wondering how universities are handling their students studying abroad in China. My D’s friend is currently doing a semester abroad and there are no classes happening right now and the new year break has been extended.
The Arizona case is reportedly a student at Arizona State University in Tempe. I haven’t seen anything about the school’s response or whether the student spent any time in the dorms before their illness was discovered.
And there’s the Wesleyan case (student being monitored for Coronavirus), which I believe was a student studying in China though I’m not sure exactly where.
Fortunately, according to the 11 PM news, the Wesleyan student tested negative for the coronavirus. 
I think it’s likely the schools will ask local parents to take in the Chinese/Asian students over the break if the severity is growing in intensity.
Yes @stalecookies — I heard that as well. Good news locally.
Personally, I do worry about influenza—DH is constantly spouting flu numbers (infectious disease doc). But we get vaccinated every year, so if we get it, it’s very unlikely to be deadly. We already had influenza B this winter and no one was down for more than 48 hours.
I wish we could vote to put more tax money towards the development of a universal flu vaccine which would protect against all strains of influenza. Right now, epidemiologists have to guess which strains of flu are going to turn out to be dominant and put those in the vaccine (in the quadrivalent vaccine, usually 2 strains of flu A and two strains of flu B ). Maybe if we had a universal vaccine, people would trust it more. and get it more. They are working on it:
https://www.niaid.nih.gov/diseases-conditions/universal-influenza-vaccine-research
This Wuhan coronavirus is scarier than the flu because a vaccine would take a year to develop. Also, infection and mortality rates are still unknown.
Our local news in Boston was reporting last night that a boarding school student in Bethlehem NH is being tested for coronavirus. Based on location, that would be White Mountain School. Reports say the student was in the Wuhan area over the Christmas break and developed respiratory symptoms after returning to school. Now quarantined in the hospital (poor kid!) and waiting for the tests to show if it’s coronavirus or not. All of which is to say, this is definitely an issue that boarding schools – as well as colleges – are going to have to deal with over the coming months.
I did see that story elsewhere. What I found interesting is that the report states the student returned on January 6th which is past the 14 day long end of the supposed incubation period. So, could just be a desire to be cautious.
Hope the student recovers quickly!
They may want to test the student to know if they need to be worried about other students who could be infected but currently asymptomatic. IOW, if the returning student didn’t develop symptoms until after returning they could still have infected others while actively sick.