I tend to agree that, if social distancing like this is something that is still going on in August, then campuses in that area wouldn’t be open. I think it’s completely impossible to social distance on a college campus. Not going to happen.
As of today, there are 550,000 positive cases in the US, and over 20,000 deaths. And that’s just a 2 month period or so, and with social distancing for part of that time. And with some areas of the country still in earlier stages. Remove social distancing and the numbers would be much higher. So, yes, I think both the infection rate and the mortality rate of COVID-19 is much higher ATM than flu.
Of course, flu has both vaccines and treatments. Long term, if we have a vaccine and effective treatments for COVID-19, then the infection rate and mortality rate may be more similar to flu. But, by fall? Unlikely.
Just for comparison, according to the CDC website, the number of people who died from flu/pneumonia in NY in the years 2014-12017 varied between 4,500-4,900 per year. That’s less than the number of people that died of Covid in NY in the last seven days.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/states/newyork/newyork.htm
There are currently 9,385 Covid fatalities in NY, and it’s far, far from over.
You also need to consider that different cities and states will hit their peak at different times. The “hot spots” in 3 weeks might be completely different than they are now. Remember when the news was focused on Seattle and CA? Then came Boston and NY. A week later and Detroit and New Orleans are blowing up. Just because a state seems to have a relatively low number of cases now, does not meant that will hold for the next few weeks.
As an example, state officials in DC have already said they don’t expect their peak to be until the first week in June. Meanwhile, Boston is expecting its peak by April 18.
This use of the phrase “infection rate” is conflating two different things: the number of people/percentage of the population currently infected (prevalence) and the number of new people each infected person will infect (reproduction number or R0).
The number of deaths is equal to the case fatality rate multiplied by the total number of cases. It is not directly linked to R0 and R0 can be modified by social distancing (and will differ by environment, for example whether or not a city has subways may affect R0), immunity, vaccination, etc.
The R0 value for COVID-19 is currently higher than for influenza because of the lack of population immunity and vaccination (flu is reportedly about 1.3 vs something between 2 and 5 for COVID-19). But the cumulative number of cases is currently much lower than the number of people who had flu last winter. And there is no reason why the total number of COVID-19 cases each year will ultimately be higher than the number of cases of flu in a typical winter, if R0 can be brought down over time. In fact we’d better hope that the total number of cases remains relatively small (less than 10% of the population) given that the case fatality rate is very likely to remain much higher than for flu.
Also, even death rate is the same, a higher rate of serious infections that require hospital care would make it much worse than the seasonal flu in terms of burdening the health care system and increasing risk for both the patient and others in the hospital (only about ~0.8% of flu cases end up in the hospital, versus just being miserable at home while recovering).
Of course, there is still too much unknown about COVID-19, including the true number of infections and deaths (of people never diagnosed with COVID-19), heightening the fear that people have.
A question- is the mortality, or even the hospitalization rate from coronavirus higher for those in the 18-22 age group than the season flu? I understand it is for older adults ( starting by age 40 or so). And it appears to be actually less severe than the regular flu for the youngest children, under age 2.
NYC’s experience fortunately appears unique. I do understand all the concern and media attention, but it seems like most states will have an epidemic much more like California than like NY or NJ. It will certainly be a case study for future doctors as to why the results were so disparate there.
When I used the term “infection rate”, I was referring to the total # of people infected with the virus divided by the total population. Those who test positive is a proxy for total infected, since we know they aren’t testing everyone.
So, I agree “ The number of deaths is equal to the case fatality rate multiplied by the total number of cases.” My point was that even if the mortality rate of COVID-19 were equal to the flu (for the younger population), you could still see much higher number of deaths if the total number of COVID-19 cases is much higher than for the flu, which it seems to be.
Again, # cases to date may be less than last season’s flu, but we are talking about less than 2 months, with some serious social distancing thrown in, and with states at various stages.
WRT immunity. There are no long term studies, so we don’t know how long immunity lasts.
Testing is the only way, other than vaccination which we know we will have to wait for at least a year or so, for us to be able to go back to some semblance of normal. As a parent of kids with asthma and as a clinical lab scientist, I would prefer for mass testing since this virus is so new. One would rather know who are protected and who aren’t. Besides its not only the younger generations we have to worry about. There are a lot of teachers, professors, and school officials who are either have underlying health issues or their ages are putting them on high risk. And theres the community where all the students go and spend their time outside the university.
I wish someone from the administration will really take that leadership of protecting us by doing the right thing. Until then, we all try to be safe by adhering to social distancing, and whatever additional guidelines are being put out there by the health experts.
The problem is, we do not know the true number of cases, severe cases, or deaths, due to shortage of testing, and because some people may have it or even die from it without ever knowing that they have it or asking a physician about it. So there is no way to really know the answer to this question now.
Remember that, while most college students (even most non-traditional ones) are in younger age groups, even the younger age groups in the US have a high rate of risk-increasing conditions (about a third), and those in college will encounter faculty and staff who may include older people with a greater incidence of risk-increasing conditions.
@roycroftmom - You seem to be overlooking that kids from the northeast and other more effective area will be coming to you county school, that is what makes this so hard.
Does anyone really believe all offices, stores, workplaces, and K-12 schools will remain closed thru the fall? We will be in the second Great Depression if that occurs,and COVID will be the least of our worries then. Once all those places open up (and that is expected to occur by June here) then I really do not understand the argument for keeping colleges closed at all.
Everyone can work, go to secondary school, shop, and live except the 18-22 year olds, who will be exposed daily (like the rest of us) in all their usual activities but can’t be permitted on a college campus? Professors have to be sheltered from virus-laden 20 year olds, but office managers who work with 20 year olds don’t? 22 year old teachers will be expected to work, though they can be exposed to potentially sick little kids, and then can carry that contagion anywhere as well. It is just illogical to treat colleges differently.
@NJdad07090 , I do understand that virus-laden NY students will come to this county. And they will interact largely with others of similar age, many of whom have already been exposed or who will develop the virus with mild if any symptoms, to whom they present no real danger with a mortality rate of less than one tenth of one percent in that age group ( even given the poor health of some).
The ones in danger here, the elderly and frail, need to be sheltering in place regardless of who is attending college here-they could be infected by anyone, including other locals.
Even if everything is theoretically reopened (but without a vaccine available), people will still be skittish about being exposed to the virus, so economic activity may not fully come back, particularly in areas like restaurants and travel to large events that have not been cancelled.
In any case, we are still at the stage where too little is known about the true number of infections, serious infections, and deaths to make a fully informed decision.
I don’t think everything is going to open up all at once. K-12 schools can plan to reopen and then not do it, continue on as inhome school at the last minute. Colleges? Can’t really do that.
NY Times Mag article and a quote from Zeke Emanuel. He is the vice provost for global initiatives and director of the Healthcare Transformation Institute at the University of Pennsylvania; host of a new podcast about coronavirus, “Making the Call”; and author of the forthcoming book “Which Country Has the World’s Best Health Care?”
"Actually, I think one of the ways we could start reopening is figuring out how young people can go to summer school and to camp. My reading of the data is that only a tiny percentage of deaths are occurring under the age of 30. It’s not zero, but it’s pretty damn close. And the achievement gap is a real concern, as is depriving kids of all their social activity. What does it mean to teach a first grader online? I’m not sure how possible that really is in the long run.
So then you say, All right, maybe we’ve got a pool of kids who can actually go to camp or summer school. Give low-income kids all the help they would need to access those programs. Everyone would have to opt in: counselors, teachers, administrators and parents on behalf of their kids, knowing that the kids could get coronavirus and bring it home and infect them. But I think that’s a possible way of unlocking parts of the economy and addressing some of the inequality we’ve been talking about.
Then in the fall, we try to add the universities. Again, the staff members and the professors would have to opt in. For some, even many of them, the risk may be too high."
The whole story is here. Some of the NYT coronavirus articles are free. Not sure about this one.
I agree. America has to reopen some time soon or the damage could take a long time to fix.
However, the reasons to close the schools in March will still be the same in July. Nothing will be different barring a miracle vaccine. In fact, it might be worse with supply chain disruptions.
So using the March logic to close schools…
A. Admit we overreacted and should’ve left them open in March with some restrictions.
or
B. We apply the same logic and shutdown schools in the fall and go to distance learning.
Choice A will be a tough sell. Should be interesting the next few months.
I have always been germophobic about shared utensils at college dining halls (like tongs for salad bar, pasta, french fries, pizza slices, ice cream toppings). I hope this puts a permanent end to that. All options should be staff served, not help yourself.
One college we are considering is Fordham. I dont know how it can open in the densely populated Bronx in person.
I haven’t said anything to D20 because she is still processing the loss of her senior spring, but I assume her chosen school, Barnard, will not open in the fall. I don’t see how any of the N.Y. schools - or frankly schools in the Northeast - can open in August. Even if cities slowly open up retail/restaurants/offices, they will urge (or demand) some degree of social distancing. That means no large classes, no conferences, no celebrations. For most schools of higher learning this will be untenable. How can you have a semester of no sports, no classes above twenty, no academic conferences and no fundraising events? And still worry about the bad press/liability when someone gets sick and Covid burns through a dorm?
Barring a miracle, it seems highly likely many colleges in impacted cities will remain online this fall.