“(President) Bacow noted that the University’s decision on whether instruction would take place in person will depend on the individual schools and their “different requirements and different capabilities.” Harvard Medical School announced last week that first year medical, dental, and graduate students will begin classes online in the fall semester.”
and of note:
“The urban campuses — Penn, Columbia, ourselves — many of our employees rely upon public transit to get to and from campus,” he added. “That’s not true at Cornell, for example, or Dartmouth. The availability of public transit and the safety of public transit is a factor that we have to consider in determining what we’re going to do in the fall.”
When I pull mine out of the dryer they are almost balls. I try to catch them mid cycle and complete the dry with an iron to flatten. I’m sure no one can tell I’ve ironed them (not crisp/wrinkle free), but at least they are back to being flat.
edited to add: Am I just terrible at laundry? What’s everybody else’s secret to getting a wearable mask after washing?
The straps pull the mask tight, even if you didn’t iron it. If your mask isn’t tight on your face, it doesn’t fit. If it’s tight on your face, it doesn’t matter whether it has been ironed.
It’s like a bottom sheet. I don’t iron my sheets, but my bottom sheet lies smoothly against the mattress because it’s stretched.
If washing your hands with any water temperature and common soap is the recommended means to kill the virus why would a cloth mask made of porous material require hot water and hot drying? Who knows why washing with bleach is recommended.
@BuckeyeMWDSG I wash mine and then hang them to dry. I was always afraid they’d shrink in the dryer. They dry quickly and relatively wrinkle free on a hanger in my laundry room.
In other words, wearing such a mask is more about being altruistic and considerate to other people (in case you are unknowingly infected and contagious) than it is for your own protection from infection. Or, in economic terms, the positive externality that you produce by wearing such a mask is greater than the benefit you gain.
But then that is probably why some people resist mask wearing, due to placing little or no value on the positive externality or consideration of others, while viewing the inconvenience of mask wearing to be not worth it in the context of the (small) amount of protection from infection for themselves.
That mask wearing is also associated with racial or ethnic minority groups may be another reason why some people who dislike those groups (or minority groups in general) may not want to wear them.
@socaldad2002
Did you see the CNN Interview with President Price from Duke? It says students will be returning in fall, (even though the email to students/parents was a bit more vague) although details and confirmation won’t be divulged until end of June. can’t post the link but just look up cnn duke interview. what are your thoughts?
What are your masks made of? And what type of masks are they? Ours are made of quilting cotton, and are the simple pleated type with elastic and they come out wrinkled but not in balls, and a quick ironing is all that’s needed to get them looking neat again.
DH is an infectious disease specialist and saw 30-50 Covid patients a day during the first wave. D19 will likely return to her university in person if students are invited to do so, however, that is not a given. We are weighing many factors, and will stay current on the latest research to inform the decision. Some factors in favor of return:
D19 does not have risk factors.
We have observed that she educates herself daily about the virus and is following the best science available on reducing transmission.
She is observant and responsible about her health and won’t ignore symptoms.
When she comes home from school, she will quarantine and get tested before seeing anyone with risk factors.
Also in our favor is that D19 loves outdoor activities. She goes to school in the south where she can often exercise, socialize and study outside. She is happy to forgo parties or any large gatherings, and would certainly take online classes from any professor who chooses not to teach in person. (Hopefully, there would be small in-person discussion/study groups to complement the online class.)
To us, the risks are low and the benefits are high. It’s not just a medical judgement, but also a judgement of D19’s behavior. She has seen first hand the difference that flattening the curve made to the those on the front lines of the NYC epidemic, and she has close bonds with people in risk categories. She honestly feels it would be disrespectful to both groups to flout infection control practices. From what I know of the vibe on her campus, I think that most students would agree and would put their creative minds to work finding ways to learn and play as safely as possible.
Like @BuckeyeMWDSG mine get pretty crumpled after the wash and the dry. I wash on hot water with bleach and dry on high. The masks easily smooth out with my hands, however; I have not ironed them. Mine are made out of 100% cotton, mostly flannel but I have some of more of a percale fabric.
BTW I am chuckling about kids not being allowed to have irons in the fall at college - I feel like in the dark ages, it was more or less expected that every student would bring an iron, and we had shared ironing boards for every few students, on the floor! I’m sure you’re right, though, about the regulations. I remember that even for a hot-water-pot, there were very strict requirements for my DS16.
I’ve always advised my kids to go for laundry about twice a week on weekday mornings, to avoid the crush and avoid the stress. But daily laundry is certainly not realistic for most students, and lack of it is something that makes mask-wearing more complex.
I think Duke, like a lot of the universities, will make a good faith effort to have students back on campus with both online instruction and in-person classes. They will be doing a lot of CV-19 testing, contact tracing, cleaning, mandatory mask wearing, and quaranting as necessary to keep the campus relatively virus free. They also will likely end the 1st semester at Thanksgiving (or with finals remotely in Dec) to get students back home for the holidays and they will not have to travel back to campus until early January for 2nd semester classes.
I also predict that unless we see a massive spike in infection rates and deaths, that the Power 5 conferences (like the ACC) will have college football in the fall and basketball in the winter/spring. If students are allowed on campus, they will get athletics up and running they best they can and safely. But in-person attendance will be very limited if not completely banned for the foreseeable future.
With that said, I might not know what I’m talking about. I looked back at one of my posts from 4/8/20 and I said that “colleges will not let students back on campus in the fall”. Ha!
Did you commit to Duke? I think you were deciding between USC (CA) vs. Duke.
Speaking to my D17 and about professors that might not be comfortable returning to the classroom, one idea she had was for the students to go to a classroom and sit Socially distanced, but then the professor would be the one to be zoomed in with all the students . This would work for a smaller class and the professor would not need to wear their mask.
She is afraid that if any of the classes she has get cancelled , she will be in trouble as she is suppose to graduate in December and has Specific classes for that to happen.
My high school just released a survey, with three option: full online, hybrid, or full in school. All of my classmates want to go full, as do I. Our district used a homeschool site for distance learning, and we all felt we suffered retention wise. Anyone else getting surveys?
Thank you for the tips. Ours are 100% cotton (reading selvage or knowing from previous quilts) fabrics I had. They are the pleated style but with ties which adds to the tangling. I do put each one in a lingerie bag thinking that would keep them from tangling with each other at least. Maybe as wearers get more practiced they will have a better feel for placing it even in a wrinkled state. I may need to get my hands on some elastic now that stores are open, it might be better for pulling wrinkled masks back into shape. I made a few with hair ties I had on hand but no one liked those.
I did order a few Brooks Bros. today - but probably won’t hand wash them, I’ll just use the delicate cycle and start to line dry.
The laundry issue is a worry knowing that laundry day at school is often when my S has run out of substitutes for underwear like swim jammers. I’m pretty sure if he saw the guidance on putting masks in brown paper bags, he’d have an excuse never to do laundry again.
Speaking aerosols can go around 6 feet. Coughing is around 12 feet and sneezing is 18-20 feet and further . Just estimates but that is where 6 feet came from.
CU announced today that they will be back on campus in the fall. They are planning on smaller classes, organizing small groups by major so 30 or so kids will live together and have the same classes, and that they will go online after thanksgiving. It seems they will keep the same calendar otherwise, and CU is a school that has a week off at thanksgiving.
3/4 of students do not live in campus housing.
They said there would be a mask requirement while in campus buildings. I think they are looking to the PAC 12 for guidance on sports.
For schools that plan to put kids in “groups” or “pods” of taking the same classes, how does that work? It wouldn’t even work in our high school (might be OK in middle school), let alone in college…doesn’t everyone have an almost-unique schedule?
(Apologies to someone in the “Say it here” thread who doesn’t like modifiers on “unique” hahaha)
