Agreed. Even quarantine on campus for those who live in dorms will require voluntary compliance and good faith by the students. The police will not be stationed at the quarantine site like a siege. Off campus students will hopefully do what is necessary, just like off campus faculty and staff.
Yeah. I think security will look for people who are obviously not students and politely talk to them.
@roycroftmom hm ok. I guess I saw quarantine differently where kids would be in a separate building with maybe staff there to keep an eye on the situation. There’s been talk here about the school dropping food for those kids. Seems pretty jail-like. I guess I’m wrong about that.
Guess I just have a lot of questions about what quarantine will look like for kids who live on any campus. Maybe it means that the student can’t get into campus buildings during that time but not that they are forced to stay in a room.
@twoinanddone sure I get that living off campus brings more freedoms but the question then begs - how does a university with tens of thousands of kids keep from getting a spike in cases? They can have all the rules they want (just like the alcohol ones) but can’t control the off campus community. Maybe that’s why some of the faculty here is concerned. I see this as less concerning for faculty who work as residential colleges where everyone lives on campus.
I expect boxed meals would be dropped off to a quarantined dorm, and maybe a staff member would be around for health emergencies, but they won’t be telling adults to stay in their rooms nor monitoring their doing so.
I think quarantining has to be staying in your room, otherwise you run the risk of spread in an environment where kids live on top of each other. I think it would make a big difference if we reduced the quarantine to 7 days, as Germany has done, unless you have symptoms. Honestly, if a kid can’t stay in their room for 7 days to protect others, they are a selfish jerk. If we can get kids to agree with this, they will be self-policing.
Quarantine is isolation. They will not be allowed to leave the quarantine area. Schools have already said following the health guidelines will be part of the honor code. There might be a common room they can all gather in or a courtyard for them, but that’s it. Yes, it will be awful.
Students who live off campus will be required to quarantine themselves, but I agree that there won’t be anyone enforcing it. If the students who are contagious will not quarantine themselves then the school won’t be open for long.
Students have been quarantining (is that a word?) at various colleges all over the country throughout the last few months after testing positive or awaiting test results. They dont seem to report it is awful. I suppose students with financial means could just get a hotel room off campus for 2 weeks if on campus conditions are too onerous. Presumably some will drive home if they live nearby.
I think the conversation has veered into two different visions of what quarantining will look like. At the beginnning of this thread (like a dozen pages ago), the assumption was a dedicated dorm for quantined students only; they would have to move from their assigned dorm to this dedicated space. Now, people seem to be posting about roommates remaining in their assigned dorms, behind the closed door of their room so long as they don’t need access to a bathroom located elsewhere. Which accomodation for people “exposed” to the virus is more practical? Does it make a difference if they’ve been exposed but don’t test positive right away?
where are those students? I haven’t heard much about that at all.
I don’t think the conditions are onerous as long as the dorm is a decent one. It’s just th 14 days. Agreed that seven would be way better.
Check the COVID pages for any university of interest. For example, Princeton reports the test results, and isolation status, of its students and staff on its page. Many other colleges do as well.
I just don’t see how a college can quarantine infected or potentially infected students in their own rooms (I know some colleges have indicated that’s what they would do). To properly isolate these students (hopefully a small number), colleges need to put them in separate and confinable building(s). Confirmed and unconfirmed cases also need to be separated.
Another useful benefit of checking the colleges COVID page can be a better sense of the contagion. For example, few of the Princeton students who remained on campus tested positive, but more than one-third of the staff did. NJ was a hotspot, so it makes sense, but is counter to the prevailing “students place others at risk” sentiment on this thread. Staff may be at higher risk from their community interaction than from students.
^Emphasis on
[quote]
who remained on campus.{/quote}
@roycroftmom I think you’re right that once students have been on campus for a while, more cases will come from the community. But once it gets on campus, it will be a Petrie dish absent strict controls.
Of course not one size fits all. Some schools might save some extra rooms in dorms or other buildings just for this purpose. Kinda sucks if you have to round up 14 days of clothes or all your clothes are dirty and have to do laundry… Lol… Typical college student.
I would think once you report your illness it gets logged and a timer is turned on per se. If you have labs maybe your teachers are notified. If you come to class etc they remind you your too early. Not sure. If your in a dorm how will they separate you?
Maybe nursing students check up OK you and take your vitals Might be good way to get some experience.
Well, I know some schools like Michigan you can send some chicken soup to your students for free if their sick. ??.
Are schools planning to quarantine every student who is exposed for the 14 days? If they are only quarantining those who are positive, then the 14 days is meaningless - you quarantine until no longer contagious to others, which could be 14 days or could be 30. The 14 days period is not the recovery period, it is the likely incubation period if you have been exposed. What good does being quarantined for 7 days do if on day 10 you can show symptoms and you’ve now exposed a whole new group because you ended your isolation?
If they are going to quarantine all who were exposed to someone with an active case, well it doesn’t make sense to let those students intermingle with other exposed students. If student didn’t get it from the original exposure, there is a much higher chance of getting it in the Quarantine Village if those exposed are all watching movies or playing video games together.
There won’t be a way to isolate all the students who have been exposed over and over. It wouldn’t be 14 days, it would be 14 days every time you were exposed.
Colleges will have to be so specific in their directions about this. What kind of symptoms require a test? What are the rules of isolation? Etc. I chose a school at random (Vanderbilt) and looked at what they did this summer. Can’t really tell a lot of details. Just “isolate”. University will bring you food and supplies (thermometer, cleaning supplies, Tylenol, stuff like that) and each person has to check in twice a day via telemedicine. Not sure how one gets released. Negative test? One or more? Really curious how this will work in practice. One thing I do know is that kids are going to be testing like crazy. Students always have coughs and colds and other viruses so, if they have to test for any symptoms like that, it’s going to be hard to keep tests in stock.
Makes me want to have S19 take an antibody test before we make any decisions. If he’s positive for antibodies then it’s less likely that he will contract the virus. Wish we all felt better about the antibody tests.
I agree with this.
Quarantining is for people who have been exposed, some of those will ultimately develop covid-19, while some won’t. Everyone who has been exposed has to be quarantined.
These students might stay in their rooms, or maybe some colleges will have them go to another location. But they have to be kept away from those who have tested positive, just like everyone else.
Students who test positive have to be isolated, separated from others who have been exposed, or the non-exposed.
Quarantining and isolating are different concepts.
This is not a one size fits all plan…and it’s best to refer to the individual school.
My daughter graduated from a large university and we still get emails about their plans for Covid. They look pretty detailed to me, but I have nothing to compare these plans to.
A small, rural LAC where everybody stays on campus is going to look quite different than a bigger school within a college town bustling with students and local families.
Nobody will really know until it actually happens…and then schools will go back and revisit what worked, and what didn’t.