Most schools will have some sort of phases or levels of openness connected to virus activity. We need to see those phases/levels and what triggers them.
Students in off campus apartments will just remain in them, regardless of whether the college closes
What are they telling landlords, do you know? There is no way we would be telling our student tenants that they have to wear masks in their apartments, etc. Or any of our other tenants, for that matter. Not even likely that we would have the authority to do that.
I think masks inside and 6 feet while inside are actually different issues with different solutions.
Students will be required to wear a mask inside. All of the time except for in their dorm room. It’s a simple rule to follow, and the school will enforce compliance.
Schools will set up the common areas and classrooms to limit people being within 6’, especially for longer than a few minutes. Desks will be spread out, sofas removed from lounges, dining tables removed, etc. The school will design compliance.
Not sure about other schools, but it was my understanding this Spring that other staff which felt they could not risk being on campus was to be offered some other position, where possible at least, rather than just being let go.
Could you provide a cite for this? I read a different, much weaker claim: that 46 of the contacts were tested, once.
We can be pretty sure that no contact ended up in the hospital, because I assume we’d know if one did, and we know that the 46 people tested negative, but we don’t know about the rest. Maybe they felt fine and didn’t bother getting tested. Maybe they were a little sick but didn’t want to get tested because if they turned up positive they’d have to stay home from work.
Maybe some of the large majority of contacts who didn’t get tested were asymptomatic. Maybe masks reduce the viral load, and maybe some got sick, but with a less bad case. Maybe (as I hope) the masks prevented infection entirely. We don’t know.
@AlwaysMoving my point is that, in Taiwan, kids are masked but not six feet apart. Why can’t we do that?
On bringing infected students home- some parents will rush to pick up their ill student, even more so if the school doesn’t have a high level of care for ill students. Concerned parents will put up a fuss if not allowed to take their child home if they so choose.
Do I think it is smarter to keep them on campus? To limit spread? Absolutely. In my child’s best interest? It would depend on how sick they were and the level of care given.
If a large outbreak occurs will schools have the staff and PPE to care for students? Even just dropping off meals (keep them out of dining halls) and medication will require staff.
@sylvan8798 Purdue is short on specifics on how they are working with landlords but their 23 page plan says they are doing so. My guess is that all they can do is explain what their mask rules are so landlords know. Not sure they could do anything more than that. They admit in the report that their rules will be more strict than the county’s. I don’t understand that. Why are colleges seemingly making plans that are more strict than what the local CDC is expecting? I’m starting to wonder if it’s just to, one, cover them legally and, two, to give the kids a better shot at keeping college life on campus. Still, if a county has certain rules around Covid, I assume those guidelines keep the virus from spreading. Unless the county says people have to wear masks in their houses, students shouldn’t have to do that in their dorms or in their off campus housing.
@“Cardinal Fang” I’m sorry. No irony. It was on a private call first thing this am with a large group including epidemiologists and economists. I didn’t press him for a source since it would have been out of place on the call and the relative expertise this person has in the field.
But I’ll poke around later. You are saying that they are wrong and that people did get infected ?
^if parents drive to pick them up, that’s one thing. I don’t see how airlines will allow sick students on planes to get home. That seems impossible. Ditto trains & buses.I
Adding: crossposted
responding to #6909, MBNC1775
Because there are far, far fewer infected people in Taiwan? Worldometer shows the entire country had 445 cases and 7 deaths. The number of new cases stabilized in April in Taiwan.
(I don’t know, I’m just speculating. Taiwan was praised early on as having reacted in a very firm/aggressive way to protect its people. Their numbers show they did it right.)
I’m just saying that public reports say that the clients and co-workers of the Missouri hairdressers were offered testing, but only some people took up the offer. Therefore, we don’t know if the people who didn’t get tested would have tested positive.
If you’ve got different information you can share, please share it.
I wish we had a reliable antibody test so we could collect more information about this virus.
The two major hospital systems in my area are refusing to give an antibody test because they believe the test is wrong 50% of the time.
I have mentioned on here in the past that I am convinced my son had this back in February. He had all the classes symptoms - fever, extreme night shivers, “the worst cough ever experienced”, and complete exhaustion. This was happening before covid was on my radar. All the possible tests - flu, mono, strep came back negative.
I know that the death rate is extremely low for our college kids. However, my son, who has zero risk factors, is in fantastic shape, and doesn’t smoke or vape, is still not able to come close to his running times before he was ill. His doctor is convinced that he did indeed have covid and has referred him to a pulmonary specialist.
My daughter is disappointed that the sophomores at her school are not permitted to go back to campus this fall. I would have let her go had she been able to. But, a big part of me is relieved that she will be home until January.
@katliamom so I wonder - if cases are low in the county where the college is, can they have different rules than a college where the community spread is more? Won’t the local county rules be enough to keep everyone safe if the kids don’t go home between arrival and Thanksgiving ?
This is what worries me. Shuttlebus’s son still hasn’t regained his fitness. As I recall, @Creekland’s son had a bad case and still isn’t back to normal. IIRC @Midwest67 lost the sense of smell and/or taste and still hasn’t got it completely back.
These are the cases we know about, here, on a board where the vast majority of us haven’t gotten sick and haven’t had immediate family members who got sick. This is a high rate of long-lasting complications!
So now it’s okay for fraternity members not to follow university mask guidelines?
Fraternity/sorority houses and dorms are not usually comparable living situations to private homes.
Except that most of the kids will come from outside of the county, some/many from places with a high infection rate. Unless they’re not allowed on campus until it’s proven they’re covid-free – and unless they’re not allowed to step outside of their campus (unlikely) – the number of cases in that county is likely to go up.
Think of the county as being a petri dish into which you’ve just introduced a bunch of new cells some of which might be infected. What do you think is likely to happen inside that petri dish?
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For the record – haha! – I’m not a college student. I’ll be 57 this year. Yes, I was sick with C19 in mid-April and my sense of smell is not functioning yet at 100%. A confounding factor could be allergies and Nasocort. I’ll never know.
I am, however, progressing in my barbell training and hitting PRs.
H was sick in early April, also not a spring chicken, and is back to working grueling 10-12 hour days on his feet.
Carry on!
I keep thinking about all the airports, airplanes, and layovers. Students are going to be exposed on their way to school.