I think the mask wearing recommendation is based on lower Ro in countries with universal mask wearing.
that is very useful, so maybe we should switch to the disposable surgical style masks instead?
^The preponderance of evidence suggests surgical-type face masks with filter layer (the most common type is the so-call 3-layer mask) are effective in greatly reducing the spread of the virus, even though there have been few actual rigorous scientific studies done so far. N95 masks would be even better but they’re scarce and uncomfortable to wear for long periods of time. Most home-made cloth masks are much less effective and they were encouraged when we didn’t have enough surgical type masks. The availability of surgical type masks are much better now and their prices are dropping, so they should be the preferred choice for most people.
There is a mask if we approve the patents that is actually self cleaning /disenfecting. You simply plug it in your phone charger and 15 minutes it can be reduced. It adds a $1.00 to the mask costs but can be reused. So hopefully we will at least have some innovations by Fall to make somethings a bit easier
@roycroftmom wrote:
You may be conflating two different issues, 1) Will a mask shield YOU from getting the virus and, 2) Will a mask shield someone else from your saliva becoming aerosolized when standing there or from walking through it, minutes after you have left the area. I’m pretty sure the efficacy standards are hugely different for each of those scenarios.
That is helpful. I too have seen studies that surgical styles masks are more effective. So maybe we need to amend the regulations if that is what the data shows. Since we are most concerned about contagion, I do not really care from a public health perspective in which direction protection flows. How much less is the transmission rate? We should know this by now with certainty.
@chemam wrote:
Sure, and I think that is the reasoning behind keeping some number of residential units available for on-campus isolation purposes.
I live in an area where one county has a mask requirement for all indoor places while the county next door does not. The difference is striking. In the “masks are recommended but not required” county I’d say half don’t wear them in stores. Restaurants reopened and one with an outside bar area had a mob of maskless people line -dancing. People are pushing to go back to “normal”.
Which makes me wonder how colleges can declare their requirements now about masks in the fall when they don’t know what the future holds. Colleges can make all the decisions they want but if a county or even state overrides that those requirements have to change.
If colleges become hotspots they can close without sending students home.
K-12 schools will close.
Education in my state is considered to be Phase 4. We are currently in Phase 1. Opening schools can only happen if we are successful during the first 3 phases.
@hopedaisy - I think that’s why a consensus is forming that a college’s mask policy will pretty much differ by region. The science won’t change, but people’s cultural habits will almost certainly affect their decisions.
All colleges that have declared their “intentions” for the fall have left open the possibility that they’d have to change their plans to comply with governmental regulations or even recommendations that will be in place in the fall.
Dear USF Community,
I hope that you and your families are staying healthy. Today I wish to share with you an important update to the academic calendar for the Fall 2020 semester.
Our commitment to you, since the beginning of the COVID-19 challenge, has been to make decisions regarding university operations that prioritize the health and safety of our students, faculty and staff. With that in mind, we are making changes to the calendar after Thanksgiving break that are designed to mitigate the potential spread of COVID-19.
As I have said previously, we intend to offer some face-to-face classes in the fall. We have decided that after Thanksgiving, however, all classes and final exams will be delivered in a quality online format. These modifications are intended to avoid potentially thousands of students, faculty and staff from returning to our campuses after traveling for the holiday. A full array of support services, such as advising, tutoring and counseling, will continue to be available to students remotely during this transition near the end of the fall semester.
USF Adjusted Fall 2020 Calendar:
Original NewFirst Day of Fall Semester Aug. 24 Aug. 24 Last Day of Classes on CampusDec. 4Nov. 25Thanksgiving Break Nov. 26-27 Nov. 26-27 Classes Only OnlineN/ANov. 30-Dec. 4Final Exams Dec. 5-10 Dec. 5-10 (online only)Last Day of Fall Semester Dec. 10Dec. 10
Although classes will not be held on Labor Day or Veterans Day, we encourage students, faculty and staff to avoid travel around each of these holidays.
Residence halls and dining options will remain open after Thanksgiving break for students who need access until the end of the fall semester.
USF’s fall commencement ceremonies are still under consideration. Plans are being developed with considerations to the safety of traveling back to campus and guidance from federal, state, and local government and public health officials regarding resuming large events.
I wish to thank the USF COVID-19 Task Force and the USF System Faculty Council for the valuable input they have provided to my leadership team as we’ve carefully evaluated changes to the academic calendar.
As I have shared with you in previous messages, when we determine it’s appropriate to proceed with phasing in more on-campus operations, you can expect there will be modifications and precautions in place to promote health and safety, such as requiring face coverings, limiting the number of individuals gathered in any one area and enhancing cleaning protocols.
Rest assured we are focused on more completely developing our plans for the fall and we look forward to providing additional updates soon.
I continue to be deeply impressed by the creative and compassionate ways our students, faculty and staff are adapting to the current situation. It’s precisely how a world-class university like USF can overcome any challenge.
Sincerely,
Steven C. Currall
President and Professor
We want to know, I assume, what would happen if an outbreak spread through dorms and/or crowded off-campus housing and then infected faculty. Would that be bad?
We can’t give exact figures, but we can look at ballparks here. The short answer is, yes. It would be bad.
Most of the students who got infected wouldn’t even be symptomatic. The ones who were symptomatic would, mostly, not be terribly sick. Possibly one or two students might end up in the hospital. It’s very unlikely that any student would die. (Not impossible, though. At the big state university across the street from my son’s small liberal arts college, a student died in March. His name was Bassey Offiong. He was just about to graduate in chemical engineering and was beloved as a gentle mentor to younger students. It’s awful.)
If the faculty at the college were as represented in the report I cited, however, they would be at much greater danger. Around age 55 is the inflection point for the disease. Below that age, there’s not much danger. Above that age, getting dangerous. The data I’ve seen say that ages 60-69 are about where people have the average risk for the disease, so if the infection fatality rate for the whole population is 0.5% (a little lower than what we’re actually seeing with serology tests) then then infection fatality rate for age 60-69 is also 0.5%. Above that it goes up fast.
Say your big university campus has 6000 tenure-track faculty members. (Michigan has, like, 4600. I picked 6000 to make the math work.) Based on the above numbers, maybe 1 in 6 is over 60, so that’s 1000 faculty members at high risk. Say that 10% of them became infected in the outbreak that started in the dorms.
This is bad. This is very bad. That’s 100 people over 60 who are infected. Some will be asymptomatic. Some will get sick. Some will be hospitalized, and we expect several to go to the ICU. Most likely one would die. Meanwhile, there are also some 20,000 staff members at our university. They’re probably somewhat younger than professors, but there are plenty of custodians, cooks and lab assistants who are older. You’re probably going to see hospitalizations and deaths there too.
So if there is an outbreak among students, and if it spreads to professors, you can expect to be attending (virtually, by now, I assume) the funeral of Professor Emeritus Beloved and of Mr. Smiley, the beloved cafeteria worker.
It matters in how people choose to wear a mask or not. For example:
A. Protects wearer better than others: all people will weigh the inconvenience of wearing a mask with what they see as the reduction of risk for themselves. Each person’s personal choice will mainly affect his/her own risk, meaning that s/he takes responsibility for his/her own risk and health.
B. Protects others better than the wearer: wearing a mask is mostly an altruistic act to protect others. Those with more altruistic leanings will wear masks to “be good citizens” or “be considerate”, while those with less altruistic leanings will not wear masks because there is little or no personal benefit (and may deride wearing masks as disdained “virtue signalling”). In this case, each person’s personal choice mostly affects the risk and health of others, so individual action is not aligned with individual incentives, although collective action in wearing masks can be effective at reducing the risk for everyone.
Since B is the case for most common types of masks, it is not surprising that wearing masks is a point of disagreement.
HS graduation parties lead to hotspot:
https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/north-fulton-county/officials-say-size-lovett-high-school-covid-19-cluster-unclear-because-families-reluctant-talk/EZHZ6BX4KNAS5LWG73RNP6I5ZA/
Did I miss discussion of the outbreak around the Lovett school graduation in Atlanta? They had a drive through celebration and then kids had parties after. One of them who hosted a party then traveled after with friends tested positive, some reports have up to 30 students positive but they are having trouble quantifying because people don’t want to talk to the health department about it.
I could see this dynamic playing out in the college environment, kids not wanting to admit to being exposed or positive, so they are not excluded from whatever they want to do. Actually, I’ve seen it in our community.
My friend in the Buckhead area said that many of the summer camps which had announced they would open are now canceled because of the number of kids from the school who would have attended.
yeah, but the question is how did these HS Seniors get it first before going these parties. I really dont think there is a way to keep this off any college campus, unless you test everyone when they arrive. Quarantine for 2 weeks , and test again, and then not allow anyone to leave (could that be done at a rural LAC?). In reality not the case.
I know people who have kids that attend this school. Yeah, and the girls going on TIKTOK to advertise it. Wonder if they had not, if the tracers would have been able to still state that it came from parties of kids who attended there.
USF, is that University of San Francisco, University of South Florida or some other school?
University of South Florida
Tampa
No kidding. Kids like the Lovett prep-school graduates who flouted the rules are going to go off this fall to college, where, we can presume, they’ll continue not to care who they infect. They were showing off their positive tests on Tik Tok, demonstrating their deep concern for their community. If I were a college professor I’d be working on my online classes. I don’t want to end up in the hospital because Sorority Sasha needed to continue to go to frat parties.