@homerdog wrote:
I think that’s what a lot of the airlines must have been thinking. But, I can attest to the fact that a lot of downstate New Yorkers were appalled by the videos of nearly full, shoulder to shoulder passenger flights even though everyone in them seemed to be wearing a mask. Locally, we’re doing both.
If you can social distance and are outdoors with no one close by, a mask won’t do much for your own protection or protection of others. If you are indoors and/or you can’t social distance, wearing a mask will reduce the risks for everyone. When you’re indoors, even if you can social distance, you should still wear a mask as the viruses can stay in the air for at least a few minutes. Also, a mask doesn’t offer 100% protection, so keeping some distance (not necessarily 6 feet) from one another is still a good idea.
That happened to me. One school, I could not wait to see and thought it would be my top choice. I didn’t like it and wound up not applying. Another, which I didn’t think I would like, became one of my higher choices.
For D20, she thought some of the tours were valuable as she asked a lot questions of the tour guides, got several guides contact information and reached out to them several months later to get additional advice on her essay topics and more information about the college’s specific programs and opportunities. It really helped D personalize her application for some the key college she applied to.
I will agree that some college tours were just ok but I think we always learned something about the college and the culture of the school from these tours.
Sued is not the problem. It’s a problem, but not the problem.
What do you think of when you think of:
Virginia Tech
Columbine
Sandy Hook?
How about St. Paul’s? Stanford swimming? Georgetown Prep?
Schools live and die on reputation. If your school is the one where a coronavirus outbreak sweeps through like it’s a meatpacking plant, “germy and unhygienic” is its new brand, which will stick for a decade.
It’s only May. A vaccine is not visible from here. A reliable treatment depends on, at a minimum, understanding of what this virus actually does, and where, in the body. Fortunately, the Trump admin can’t read scientific journals and doesn’t know who’s publishing what or where, so I’m not seeing interference, but we’re still fairly early in data collection, from what I can make out. Taking censuses of symptoms in various tissues and organs and demographics, putting case studies next to each other. The thing that keeps catching my ear as a Bad Thing is clinicians saying “I’ve never seen anything like this.” They’re confused. The last virus that I can recall we hadn’t seen anything like was AIDS, and politics got in the way of that one, too. And, as was pointed out above, it took many years to get anything that worked against it beyond safe sex, though it took years just to work out what “safe sex” might mean.
The main thing I worry about isn’t universities; it’s medical people. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s been chewing them up like a harvester, and there’s no foreseeable rest for them. Nobody’s been talking about the number of them who’re on the job not because of what heroes they are but because they have $300K in student loans from nursing school or medical school or PA school or what have you. And at some point there’s going to be attrition and nobody to back them up. At that point you’ll start hearing about “home palliative care” or some such, because there’s no point in going to the hospital; they have a small COVID ward, it’s full, try again next week if you’ve got a next week.
The schools that try reopening are…you know, it’s interesting, a thing I’ve been asking about since March and still get silence on is what’s supposed to happen with the class if we get sick and die, or get sick and vanish into the hospital for a big chunk of the term. Ordinarily, you’d pass your class on to someone else, who’d shoulder the burden and yell a lot till they got money. But if you’re teaching on campus and you get sick, the pool of replacements will be small and very busy.
Anyway. I think the schools that try it will close again relatively swiftly. Publicly, my U is making well-hedged noises about returning in fall. But faculty are being directed to plan courses in 3-week modules, I expect so we can close again with relatively little notice or pedagogical damage.
Read again through the hedging lens: all they’re saying here is that they know people are pushing back about paying full freight for online, so they’re…thinking about things. Intent, mapping, producing, redesigning, considering, will share. Nothing here is saying “we will make this happen.”
^^The key to a college tour is preparation. Always bring a list of questions specific to the college toured. We did nearly 30 tours over two years all over the country (and one outside), and four of the colleges more than once. With a few exceptions, most of the tours were enjoyable and very helpful in the selection process. We also find department specific tours to be even more helpful for those schools that offer them. Info sessions are a different story as they’re mostly canned with limited opportunities to ask questions.
Re masks - just wear them.Or shields.
The extent to which the live-virus-bearing droplets aerosolize and deposit, how far they go, and under what conditions is not definitively known. New science daily. Meantime, keep in mind that these are very very tiny droplets and that breezes are strong for them. Putting up a physical barrier between your mouth and someone else, why not, will help. Even better if they’ve got one too.
There are reasons why so many people in China wear them routinely. It’s not just about pollution.
I have an N95-equiv mask, but if I’m just out for a run I use a doubled hanky. Good airflow, soddenness of hanky afterward tells me it’s catching plenty of vapor and done people I passed a favor.
When I think of VaTech, I think of a great public school with record yield that is hard to get into now. Stanford, same but private and far harder to be admitted. Neither Georgetown Prep nor St. Paul’s lack for well qualified and wealthy applicants begging for admission. All colleges will have COVID outbreaks. Oxford already did, but it doesn’t seem to have hurt its reputation.
@tuckethannock Huh? I highly doubt all of these colleges, including Scripps, are just making up ways to change campus to make it safe. I know for a fact that Bowdoin is working night and day with health professionals to do what they can to make campus as safe as possible. All schools are “mapping, producing, redesigning” etc. - what do you want them to say in May? It’s too early to have definitive plans. They are working on it. They just got done sending kids home and trying to get through spring semester. I get the financial situation of the colleges but it’s also the students’ futures. It’s in our best interest for our kids’ colleges to survive and I like seeing all of them working hard to figure out options. Not sure what will happen in August. Maybe all of the best laid plans will have to be ditched and kids cannot go back to residential colleges but I certainly don’t prefer colleges sitting around and just choosing that option now.
@1NJParent ok. I still don’t get the mask/distance thing. At the end of May, it looks like we will be able to gather in groups of ten or less. That means still wearing masks and being six feet away from each other? Not sure why gathering in a groups of ten gains us anything or why it’s part of a different phase then. Seems like the “rules” now would allow us to gather in any size group if we are wearing masks and six feet away. Illinois should probably clear that up.
I think it’s a matter of probability. If the mask gives you a small benefit, and the distancing gives you another small benefit, then keeping your gatherings small gives you another small benefit. The idea is that across a large population, all of these practices together reduce overall transmission.
@homerdog I think the state wants to prevent multiple large scale outbreaks. Some outbreaks are inevitable (just look at what happened in South Korea). It’s all about probabilities. If the state has fewer cases, then a larger gathering may be okay, as the probability of someone infected at the gathering is lower. Tracing and isolation would be still be possible if there’re fewer outbreaks. On the other hand, if the state still have many more cases, it would need to keep the gathering as small as possible. There’d be more outbreaks, but hopefully smaller ones that makes tracing and isolation still possibile.
We will know in August whether K-12 schools will open. I was already told by administration that if they do, we will all be wearing masks and social distancing rules will be in effect. Students will either be AM/PM or on an every other day schedule to allow for 6 feet between desks. Our school is very small. Right now they are putting sanitizing stations outside of every classroom and students will not be able to share materials. More rules will follow…no doubt.
Every little bit helps, as noted above. Masks + distancing provides more protection than either one alone.
^^^They’re going to have to double up on "wellness"staff. Watch idle athletic departments get charged with contact tracing, and effectively becoming counselors for asymptomatic but quarantined students.
Yes, I think @INJParent is right – the limits on number of people is to prevent large scale breakouts. But I think from a matter of mitigating personal risk, it’s still best to social distance and wear masks. Realize it may not be attainable all the time, but the more you do the more you protect yourself and others.
In order to jump start a bit of a social life, my plan is to start some small outside gatherings in our backyard – sitting outside 6 to 10 feet apart. For now, BYOB and food and just meet us in the backyard. I’m not ready to eat inside at someone’s home or vice versa yet.
^And, balconies and porches have suddenly come into their own. Maybe, social distancing is what they were always meant for?
I think the K-12 teachers have it way worse than the college professors who don’t have to spend hours at a time wearing a mask. I can’t imagine lecturing all day with a mask on.
Are the students going to have to wear masks, too? If so, that will be rough for them and the teacher who is going to have to police the policy, especially with the younger kids.
I have read of multiple districts discussing shorter days, staggered days, etc. What I never see mentioned is what the parents are supposed to do for child care when their kids are not in school.
Articles like these kind of worry me . . . young people aren’t dying of COVID in huge numbers, but that doesn’t mean it’s like a bad cold. Do we really want students experiencing these symptoms alone in makeshift quarantine hotel rooms? Come to think of it, what support staff is going to want to work in a hotel populated entirely by COVID positive people? https://www.chicagotribune.com/coronavirus/sns-nyt-wish-i-could-do-something-for-you-20200517-6w7z7vyvmrd5dbu3gczjvgwdry-story.html?fbclid=IwAR2o2uAOkKSORqTSugQUpmvc4QaiVssh2MrtjQd3qYGyPfGGln3kRYspNEE
I can’t wait to see what our high school comes up with. 3000 students. Passing periods are crazy crowded and us adults avoid being in school at that time! It’s a crunch of humanity! And masks on for six hours straight? Yeah no. I can’t imagine. Maybe during passing periods and then kids can be six feet apart in class and take the masks off. Maybe half day is the way to go if masks have to stay on but then teachers still in the all-day mask situation. No way kids can concentrate for tests wearing a masks all of the time. I just don’t see where this is all going. We are wearing masks forever? What needs to happen exactly for the masks to go away? Why is no one asking that question?
^^^the answer is a vaccine