Austinmshauri and twogirls, thank you for your perspectives (and glad your daughter is OK!). While our students lives have truly been upended, many of them don’t actually know someone who has even tested positive, so Covid is still a theoretical problem…they really don’t ‘get’ that it is far more likely that their actions can and will have a direct impact on the health of others once back in a congregate living situation though we can start reminding them now how the flu spread through their dorms freshman year, how many people they knew who got mono, etc. BTW I do not live in a hot spot and the two other adults I know who had Covid were like my spouse- no preexisting conditions and not elderly- and 2/3 of them are still feeling effects 4 - 8 weeks after recovery. Guava123, I believe it depends on your school as to how those funds are distributed so perhaps check with your school’s financial aid office or website (PS not all schools accepted funds).
D was one of very few students at her school (Susquehanna) not to get any funds from CARES. I called FA and they said they had to abide by “strict guidelines from the government” and we did not qualify because we did not file FAFSA last year. However, there are many people I have heard from who got it without filing for FAFSA (from several different schools) so I have no idea how they determined qualification. We would’ve filed but she was a last minute transfer in July so it was too late. We did file this year. Plus, D won’t be able to contribute her usual several thousand dollars from summer earnings. We could have used something to help out. Disappointed.
@circuitrider I never said that kids would follow the social distancing rules outside of where they must. I’ve been saying that they will follow the rules on campus and that will be better than no rules of course. And I’ve been saying that people need to be less afraid. With some of the high school kids in our town hanging out quite a bit, they don’t seem to be infecting their parents.
My point has always been that kids will be forced to follow the colleges’ guidelines while in class and in campus buildings. That they will be less likely to do so when in private like a dorm room or apartment. And maybe that’s not going to turn into a horror movie scene.
The nursing homes aren’t seeing the spread because kids are having parties. Those kids aren’t going to the nursing homes. Plus, those cases are not new. Almost all happened last month before it was common to wear masks when in stores, etc. And now, nursing homes have different protocols to keep their residents more safe.
^We can’t assume kids everywhere are going to behave responsibly on campus. In a large school, it’s almost a certainty that some kids won’t.
@taverngirl , I do not doubt public school k12 support staff will still be employed. I was referring to residential college support staff, and should have clarified that.
While I agree, @1NJParent,that kids may not follow the rules, neither will your co workers, neighbors, etc. , so it may be best to act accordingly.
@homerdog, I think the point is that we’re all running out of points to make. LOL,
@1NJParent you don’t think students will wear masks inside campus buildings? I would assume that there will be social pressure to wear masks when on campus and they will have to wear them in class. And anywhere where there’s an attendant at the front of the building like a library, there will be someone to remind them masks are required.
Roycroftmom, I respectfully disagree that massive congregate living situations are not more dangerous than a typical work place for support workers. I’m a business person, I get the ‘they need income’. But there are many places that they are not going to just ‘commute to the city’ because there is no city. Aside - I would say the majority of people I know who work white collar jobs in cities (and not even cities for that matter, but large office complexes in larger 'burbs) not only continue to work from home but have already been told they will be home until September through the end of the year.
I believe you were responding to @twogirls post #4639
Are you imaging a large outbreak where only students get sick? If everyone on campus is vigilant about masks and social distancing, maybe we avoid the large outbreak.
If I was in charge, the assigned summer reading might be Poe’s Masque of the Red Death, but my sense of humor is rather dark.
Impossible to predict the fall, but interesting to watch it all play out.
I’m more concerned about parties. Would all students wear masks at the parties? Unlikely. Would they all obey rules that any gathering has to be limited to x number of people? Also unlikely. In a large school, the odds are some students won’t follow the rules and it’s impossible to police it.
Right,@2ndthreekids, but I wasn’t referring to white collar workers. Custodians and food staff do not work from home, and generally do not get paid if they do not work. My office building probably has 500 workers, most of whom live with at least another person, so easily over 1000 people’s germs and viruses. And 99% of us take the elevators or use the restrooms during the day. So no, I really don’t think a food service worker, even at a residential college, is necessarily at more risk, but we may just have to disagree on that.
Ha! Exactly. It’s a little crazy that this thread is at 233 pages. It seems none of us has inside knowledge as to exactly how schools are planning but yet they ARE planning so, at some point, all of guessing is kind of silly. It also doesn’t seem like any of us are epidemiologists so we don’t have that expertise either. I don’t know why so many posts are in the vein of “I don’t get how this will work” when, of course, we don’t. Most of us are parents or students or maybe faculty who don’t seem to be in the know.
On top of that, we have kids at vastly different types of schools scattered all over the country and Canada and we live in towns and cities that have each been affected differently by the pandemic.
The only real “news” on here are the posts that quote colleges are their fall plans and there aren’t all that many of those.
Yes, there’ll be irresponsible coworkers, neighbors, etc. However, spreading is likely to be much more limited in those situations. On a densely popularly campus in a large school, the virus could spread much more quickly and widely before it’s even detected.
@homerdog 100% agree with you on the kids partying thing. It seems from my Instagram feed that I am the only student from my high school’s graduating class who is still socially distancing. All the other students I knew in high school are hanging out with friends, going out places, partying, and drinking. The students from my college seem to be paying much more attention to social distancing, but the commitment to it has wavered; many have started hanging out with friends. Also, in my aware, my family is one of the only families wearing masks; whenever we go to a drive-thru or walk in somewhere to pick up food, almost nobody else is wearing a mask. We are from a state that is in Phase 2 of reopening, and when we walked into Five Guys, a ton of people were sitting down, eating, not socially distanced and certainly not wearing masks; it’s not just college students that are ignoring social distancing measures.
I truly think that if college kids are home next semester, there will be no efforts whatsoever to socially distance. If they are on college campuses, at least they can enforce those on-campus. Also, it’s not like faculty and staff members in a college town are contained in some magic bubble while not on-campus that prevents them from being infected. With social distancing measures enforced on campuses as well as requirements to wear masks, they are probably much more likely to pick it up in town than on-campus.
The chances of DS19’s school opening in-person for undergraduate students in the fall is virtually nil. The most optimistic scenario is some hybrid courses for some students (those with labs or practicums that can’t be accommodated virtually). Given that it’s most likely that all of DS’s classes will be online the question becomes does he stay home or does he move into his leased off campus house that he will be potentially sharing with 7 other roommates of whom there is no guarantee that they will all continue to socially distance. From a risk of contracting Covid perspective I’m not sure either scenario is safer. If he stays home he will have contact with his father who is working in the office every day. While his current risk of contracting Covid with a large proportion of the workforce still WFH is low, as soon as more lockdown restrictions get lifted and more workers return to work, the chances that DH catches it and then passes it on to the rest of the household is higher. Then there is also DS21 who will be a high school senior. I have no idea what the plan is for the high schools but I don’t think they will be having 100% online instruction so that means that he will most likely be spending at least some time at school in-person creating another potential vector for our household to be infected.
Given that he could get sick in either place, where would he be happiest?
Masks at parties? Nope. And I never expected that. So kids spread germs at parties or in private if they are sick. But then when they are on campus they have masks on and are social distancing. And, if this works correctly, kids who have tested positive will be quarantined and that leaves the asymptotic kids out on campus but still …in masks and six feet away from faculty and staff.
Here in a hard hit area of PA, my kids continue to social distance as do their friends.
@Leigh22 Ours are doing a good job of social distancing like yours but I doubt all teenagers in PA are doing the same. Have your kids look at their Instagram feed.