Colleges in most of the country outside the northeast corridor won’t need to go online. In my current county, population 600k, there have been 5 deaths, all victims over age 80. Many hundreds of younger people have tested positive and recovered. Sheltering the elderly and high risk will be a more acceptable alternative to residents than closing schools.
@roycroftmom what about schools outside of the hottest spots that have students from NY, Boston, and other hot spots returning as students? Maybe that’s not as worrisome as the campus location actually being in the hot spot?
My D went to school in the south and parents are saying that online is possible for the fall. Nothing has been decided yet but it has been discussed.
I think it’s too early. In early March we were still leading a normal life. Fast forward 2 weeks…things change fast.
Let’s hope they keep changing for the better.
By the fall I think it is safe to assume that we have all been exposed to this virus, regardless of where we live. Some stay asymptomatic, some are immune, some develop it. The vast majority of students in the northeast remain in the northeast for college, but even if they attend, say UT Austin, it is highly likely the 40k undergrads there have or already will be exposed by the fall anyway, since offices/stores etc will have reopened by then.
We won’t know who has been exposed unless everybody gets an antibody test. Right now they are saying that most people will not have antibodies…but I certainly hope they are wrong.
I know people who had it, yet their spouses etc show no sign of the virus. Will they have antibodies? Let’s hope so…but those same people were also offered a test when their family member was tested, and at the time were negative.
^^That assumption may not be correct. Check this out:
https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/04/09/999015/blood-tests-show-15-of-people-are-now-immune-to-covid-19-in-one-town-in-germany/
@1NJParent , @roycroftmom , and even that study that purported to show that 14% of people in the worst hot spot in Germany had antibodies has come under massive fire because it turns out that while the sample may have been representative, they were all part of families and they did not factor out that that families were much more likely to be infected together than 14% of the population as a whole. Take a regions’ death, multiply them per thousand. That’s your population with antibodies.
And @roycroftmom, I am sure you know Oxford and Cambridge are about as representative of European universities as NESCACs are of stateside ones, but not everyone does and people may be misled, so why not just say Oxbridge, unless it is important to throw Durham in there somewhere, at which point you might call them “some residential universities in the UK”.
Not that anyone in any part of Europe has a freaking clue as to what to do about universities in the fall, so it doesn’t really matter either way.
I agree this is how things might happen. That leaves the NE schools that choose to go online at risk of losing students who might take the opportunity to transfer to a school that is allowing students to return to campus. Assuming many schools will be open to taking transfers late in the process.
Time will tell how this all plays out.
Even on the Diamond Princess, with near universal exposure in confined quarters over weeks, only 700 of 3700 tested positive for the virus, and half of those positive had no symptoms. Those with symptoms who were over aged 75 faired poorly, as a group.
One doesn’t need to wait for everyone to show antibodies-many exposed won’t develop the sickness anyway.
I wonder whether the lowest risk schedule for schools might not be to go on a trimester or even a sort of block schedule, starting in October. Prepare to schedule all online classes until Dec. In February, start two trimesters in place. Maybe even a year round quarter schedule. Be very flexible in terms of whether a student can be on campus or not, some will have to shelter in places, not have to do so in others, there may be rolling lockdowns. Have year round dorm occupancy, students must be able to move out at short notice with just one or two suitcases. Have in person classes at times when you can, online classes at times you can’t.
I am aware that this will completely wreck colleges planning and revenue with respect to conferences, spectator sports etc. But that revenue will dry up anyway and maybe, though it may be naive to hope so, a focus on colleges’ actual mission might change some things for the better.
I hope kids can go back without an antibody test. All of this talk about testing and having to be positive in order to go back into society is pretty scary stuff.
@roycroftmom You “know” a lo
Especially when if you are following the law and SIP you shouldn’t be being exposed!
I have heard some academics say it’s very difficult to go from semester to a trimester curriculum. Our HS looked at it and teachers balked, so they dropped it.
Obviously these times are different though, and solutions that might never have been on the table before might very well be now.
Unfortunately the loss of revenue will make things worse for many, especially those who need financial aid.
Of course you could be exposed while following the law. People still need to go to groceries, pharmacies, pump gas, etc. Even if you manage to never leave your home, presumably you then need to receive deliveries, don’t you? Do you not touch or open your mail or front door? I don’t pretend to know anything more than others, but there is a lot of publicly available data for those interested in facts.
True, but not everyone feels the same way, especially when it comes to sending their kid away to college because there is no way of knowing who will get sick, or who will have a mild, medium or severe case.
There are also many college age students with co-morbidities that can’t risk getting sick…obesity, diabetes, autoimmune diseases, heart conditions, etc.
I agree. If you need a positive antibody test to go back to work or school then you are punishing the people who didn’t catch it. If this happens, you are just encouraging people to try to get infected so they can get back to normal life.
We have talked about this very thing in our household and there are family members who would choose to infect themselves to be able to get on with things.
I thought I also read that antibody tests are not a perfect answer either. We don’t know how long someone with the antibodies is protected from the virus. We don’t know yet if people who had symptoms could get reinfected. At some point, there will have to an educated leap of faith for any groups to leave this “stay at home” order.
I’m starting to feel more confident that kids will be going back to college in the fall, even though the vast majority of people won’t have been exposed. Looks to me like we’ll have a combination of track and trace, rapid testing before you are allowed into the dorms and then ongoing temperature scans before going into lectures, and masks everywhere. Sports will be played without spectators and social gatherings will be restricted and strictly limited in size.
I think the key early breakthrough is more likely to be in treatment protocols that limit the death rate, as that can come much more quickly than scaling up a vaccine. If the death rate is say 2-3 times that of flu instead of ten times more then would you take the risk (especially with more protective measures)? I think I would.