I assume you are fine with that going both ways, if a college tells all staff to be on campus they have to go or as you say There are choices, a teacher could sit out a year or transfer to teach at a new school. I am not saying a teacher who has health risks, but not sure where each school draws the line.
My reply was to number 6669 post
Online kindergarten seems like a particularly bad idea.
Presumably, the first people offered will be those at higher medical risk and those with riskier contact with others due to their job or school. Since classrooms operating as normal are among the higher risk of transmission situations (indoors, closely spaced seating for a long period of time), students, faculty, and staff at schools would probably be among the higher priority groups.
Thank you for your work!! I myself am cautiously optimistic about early 2021, but because of the “all things have to go perfectly well” part, I don’t think we can count on one for spring semester 2021.
I don’t know how it works in other states, but in NYS the governor and NYS Board of Regents, not the colleges, draw the lines. Colleges can’t tell all staff to be on campus unless the state authorizes it.
Our numbers are looking better, but we’ve only just started our reopening. Two areas are already facing a rollback on their current phase due to unauthorized large social gatherings and violation of mask wearing regulations. And we haven’t seen the effect of the protests. We’re still social distancing, wearing masks, and limiting most gatherings to no more than 10 people, but if we have an uptick in cases the state will pause the reopening for everyone, colleges included.
In today’s report the governor said numbers can turn on a dime and it takes weeks to get them under control, so they’re proceeding with caution. I don’t think we’re going to be in an all hands on deck situation this fall. The governor is right that all people can do now is give best guesses because we don’t have the numbers yet, but at my college the preparations so far are for a few hybrid classes with mostly remote teaching and a plan for all staff to continue to work remotely. I have no doubt that if students come back to campus and trigger a spike with irresponsible behavior, the state will shut down whichever campuses are causing the outbreak and send the students home.
Do most students in the SUNY system live on campus, which is all that the governor could control, or are many in off campus apartments where they can remain regardless of the governor’s preference?
Like everyone else, I’m hoping for an early vaccine. But pragmatically, I think there will be millions who refuse to take it especially given that the worst cases are with the elderly and those with underlying conditions. The mortality rate for Covid is far lower than originally reported. Plus, folks will consider the rough numbers once the vaccine is available to them. Like any vaccine, one needs a considerable number to take it in an specific demographic, otherwise, it will continue to circulate.
I’d rather see specific medicines to treat Covid than a vaccine to avoid it. Also, many people will be more cautious taking this vaccine as it will have been created so quickly. I’m high risk and I’d be on the fence about a vaccine, at best.
The fear seems to have subsided a lot in my state which got hit quite hard. People “think” it’s over. They are out and about and don’t want to think about it. Don’t know if that bodes well or if there will be another spike and they’ll be home again. But the serious fear of dying is gone. Now that the weather is nice, few(er) people are wearing masks and many are outside.
Depending on how things go this summer (lots of volunteers for real time studies - protests, Trump rallies, states with no restrictions, etc), I think people will make informed decisions on the vaccine. If it goes to crap, then people are going to be more likely to want the vaccine. I can see them giving it to everyone in assisted living facilties.
Even if only 50% of Americans get it, if we can keep the R number down under 1, this thing will peter out (unless it mutates like the flu).
This is exactly what we should expect when campuses open. Makes the scurries planned by Grinnell make even more sense.
Trust me. Kids will figure it out. Likely within 30 seconds of arriving on campus.
YIKES! If you should see any follow-up reporting on this story, will you please share here? I would love to know how the virus spread, and if other Army bases have seen similar outbreaks.
Odd that this story is two weeks old and not circulating more, no? Maybe it’s because no one was hospitalized and almost all cases were asymptomatic. If that happens on campuses, those cases might not even be caught. And no one will be hospitalized.
Where did you read that piece of information?
As much as we all hope that things will go well and students, faculty, and the campus communities will follow all the best protocol, this is America and we have a problem. We have a lot of problems.
Even right now, people are not wearing masks in many places. Maybe some are getting lax, but many are not doing so on some kind of principle. And they are mocking/making fun of those who do wear masks (for reasons that may be obscure to the rest of us).
If your child is in an area where not only don’t people wear masks, but you have problems if you DO, what then? If students are point blank refusing to wear masks, who will enforce that in the classroom? I don’t see myself calling campus security to have John Doe Mask-Resister hauled away, no matter how misguided I think he is. My alternative is to say I’m not having lecture unless people comply, in which case it’s on the rest of the class to “convince” John Doe to GWTP.
The problem is that a military base is a lot less open than a college campus, and 22% infection rate in 8 days should scare the poop out of anyone reading that. The fact no one needed to be hospitalized is a blessing, thought it doesn’t mean that no one became ill (and many people who don’t need to be hospitalized are still very sick with this illness).
Testing students when they arrive at campus (and thinking you have an ‘all clear’) is going to mean that an open campus is going to have infections racing through them and hitting those most vulnerable - many more of whom will be found on a college campus/outside environs than will be found at a military base.
In the story. “Majority were asymptomatic and none were hospitalized.”
The headline is misleading. The 22% infection rate was after 14 days of monitoring and 8 more days of training, so 22 days after the initial tests. Not good at all, but it suggests that more regular testing should be able to detect issues well before 22% get infected. The article doesn’t specify what “monitoring” was done, but it would be interesting to know if there was any temperature screening.
@beebee3 it is not clear in the story what masking or social distancing measures were taken. @sylvan8798 I would not expect a professor to teach if kids weren’t all wearing masks. I think it’s odd that any college would make them optional in class.
My apologies for getting the numbers of days incorrect, @Twoin18 you are right.
I, too, am not really comforted by 22% infected over the course of 22 days, 14 days of which were ‘covid monitoring’. And the larger point still stands about what can (and most probably will) happen on campuses this Fall. More testing means more expense…how often are schools going to test? Most plans I have seen suggest monthly testing - that wouldn’t have caught this outbreak. If students are allowed to freely mingle/socialize in dorms/dining halls how many more people will need to be tested when a symptomatic students goes to the medical facilities on campus?
When @homerdog points out that most recruits were asymptomatic, I am not at all reassured, and I am surprised that is pointed out like there is any positive to it…no symptoms from the first group of infected just allows the virus to spread more widely and makes it harder to track when it reveals itself.