“Well…open it just for students and limit it to 30 % capacity for the first game. Have social distance police”
Well I just did a quick search and there’s 60K students if you include grad students and all three campuses. I know a lot of UM grad students who went to the games as well. Best case would be that half the 60K people UM considers as students don’t want to attend for health reasons and you can accommodate the remaining, otherwise either you’d need lottery or you’d have to prioritize - maybe freshman and first-year grad students since since they haven’t been to a game yet, then down the line.
The more I think about the Rice plan, the more I like it. It overcomes ‘equity’ issues. Some students work and don’t have time for laundry, some students don’t have budgets for disposables, etc.
I don’t know anyone that brings their own cloth napkins to restaurants for dinner and that touches mouths.
There’s nothing magical about 6 feet (or 2 meters). The virus can travel further under some scenarios but significantly less in most other scenarios. The longer the separation the better the protection, of course. But it’s not always practical in more congested places. In Singapore, for example, the requirement is 1 meter (or about 3 feet).
Would it be cost or environmentally prohibitive for colleges to give out disposable masks? As for my cloth mask, i wash it in the sink with soap like i do a bra. I hang it dry.
Here’s my take - thus far we have seen a range of degrees of compliance with social distancing, masks, limiting group size, etc. across the population in this country. University populations are likely to be no different. The chances of all of the people on a given campus following best practices all of the time are virtually nil. Some folks will be very compliant and others will take their chances and risk contracting COVID and passing it on to others. As mentioned upthread, some campuses may be able to have better outcomes if they can reinforce compliance by appealing to well established honor codes or moral norms.
What is likely to determine short, medium, and long-term outcomes is what happens after outbreaks occur. Maybe if an unauthorized party becomes a super spreader event, students will take notice. When the possibility of having to revert to online education or be sent home from campus becomes real and present, maybe compliance will increase? Personal connections to students, faculty and staff who have fallen ill should raise awareness. And then the perceived threat will die down and folks will probably let down their guard and the cycle will repeat. The best case scenario is probably a series of small outbreaks that can be contained. Hopefully campuses can pull that off in order to continue to function.
BTW, I believe that it’s possible to speak through masks in a small, discussion-based class. Or students and professor could keep their masks on unless they are actively speaking and then lower the mask briefly to make their point and put it back up. I have seen small groups gathering outdoors, conversing, while socially distancing with masks. I have social distance walked and talked with a mask for an hour or more. It’s not optimal, but it’s doable.
My D17’s school (LMU) has said in a staff memo (list of ideas they are pursuing, not concrete plans for fall) that the school will provide masks to students. It wasn’t specified if they would be disposable, fabric, or maybe both?
I agree that mask washing will be an issue in college and that those of us who can should provide our kids with many masks. Funny because just this weekend I was researching how to wash/disinfect fabric masks, as it’s been long enough that our homemade ones are starting to show some wear and tear. Found this, from CDC on mask washing:
my summary: machine wash at highest temp for fabric, high heat dry or air dry (in sunlight if possible), hand washing requires bleach. My comment: Why does hand washing require bleach, and machine washing not? Does the agitation timing have that much to do with killing the virus?
We talked to our Rice daughter about it and decided we could send her with a good supply of cloth masks and some disposables because her initial feeling was she was unsure about relying on the “recycled” masks. However, she admitted she could see quickly getting over her misgivings and use the school provided masks, mainly due to the convenience.
Rice is a pretty smallish school though - it seems like this would be a challenging plan for larger schools.
However, doesn’t speaking produce more droplets than just breathing, so wouldn’t removing a mask to speak mean removing it when you are producing more droplets that could infect others if you are unknowingly infected and contagious?
@ucbalumnus I’m also assuming appropriate social distancing, which in a class of this type should probably exceed the regulation 6 feet. Keeping the mask on would be better.
IIRC, even Fauci predicts there will be outbreaks. His only proviso was that “healthy young people are unlikely to require hospitalization” [I’m paraphrasing.] The question will be after how many such occurrences will the college be able to keep up the pretense of having mostly live classes and sit-down cafeteria meals? I think when Fauci says, “It depends.”, he’s really saying it will depend on pressure from the surrounding community.
Sanja Gupta I think said wrapping around the sides and chin. So coming over and under per se. I just ordered some and hopefully they do…I am working so will have to find that piece and listen to it again or google it later.