Apparently the testing was discussed in the Wall St. Journal op-ed. I believe it is behind a paywall so I personally didn’t read it. But the panelists did, and the one who was most upset is an alum of Cornell himself.
@cinnamon1212 --Thanks. I will try searching as I have an online subscription. I found the opinion piece written by the president & provost five days ago, so maybe if I read the comments I will find something.
Just curious as my Cornell student has already graduated and I am skeptical about any college opening this fall. Interestingly, Ithaca College announced an Oct 5 opening date, perhaps thinking that everyone else will have opened and closed by then?
As soon as I saw the sad story of Juan Garcia, the Penn State student who died, I knew someone would quickly chime in that he was fat. Sure enough, two messages later, there it was.
If we want to know whether our own college student will die of covid, weight and BMI are relevant. But if we want to know whether covid will cause deaths* on college campuses, it is not so relevant. There are many many obese college students. Your normal weight child knows them. College administrators calling parents are not going to have an easier time talking about the awful news if the student was fat, and your child is not going to be less shocked, less upset or less sad if a fat friend dies than a thin friend.
*It will cause some deaths. Not many.
Yes, they may die. They may die if they stay home as well. It is exceedingly rare, but it can happen, regardless of venue. Of course, they could die of lots of causes, regardless of enrollment in or attendance at a college. Those at higher risk should consider their options carefully.
I guess the question I have are college students living on campus more at risk for developing CV-19 than they would be living at home? One thought is that being on a college campus with extreme safety and testing protocols might put a student at less risk than being out in the general public?
I don’t think anyone really knows the answer to this question, but I think it’s an important question that needs to be asked.
What does staying at home even mean in this context? Not many 21 year old men are in their mom’s house all day, at least not here. They may sleep there (most nights) but they are out and about much of the day.
How many people are the students exposed to at home vs at college. To me the answer is blindingly obvious. If someone is “quarantined” at home, home offers orders of magnitudes less exposure and is therefore clearly less risky.
Not saying that all college students should stay home, not at all, and right now my own college junior is scheduled to head back to Atlanta in August. But there is no question that his exposure risk is tiny here on our upstate NY farm and much larger at college.
They are, and here is why.
Let’s divide college students into partiers, quiet rule-followers, and students in the middle who give into temptation if it is presented to them.
The partiers are at the same risk; they will congregate and potentially expose themselves to covid whether they live in a dorm, off campus or at home.
The students in the middle are at greater risk. With parties and gatherings more available to them if they are at campus (whether living on or off campus), they will go to them, potentially exposing themselves to covid.
The rule-followers are at greater risk. They won’t go to parties, wherever they live, because they follow rules (or perhaps, as in the case of people like my son, they are not invited to parties anyway). If they go to class with the partiers and the middlers, they’ll be exposed to infected people. Moreover, as we’ve seen, partiers are not only the most likely to be exposed and get infected, but the least likely to take precautions not to infect others if they are asymptomatic (or even if they are symptomatic), so by having to be exposed to these covid-spreaders, the rule-followers are at risk, whereas if at home the rule-followers would have had no exposure to the partiers.
For those of you sending your kids back to school who live off campus, will you have them tested before they go? If they are going to a state that has tests and they won’t be included in their college’s tests, will you ask them to get tests regularly? If it’s good for the kids on campus to be getting regular tests, wouldn’t it be good for the off-campus kids to do what they can to get tested as often as possible as well?
FWIW, based on what I’ve seen about compliance around here over the last two months, I think if the students stay home their parents will be more at risk.
In my mind, it’s not about how many people they are exposed to, but how many people they are exposed to that potentially have the virus and will spread it to them.
Remember, most colleges are creating a “bubble” with frequent testing, contact tracing, apps, quarantining and isolating as necessary. That’s just not happening back at mom and dads house. Right now my D20 works part-time at a restaurant and is potentially exposed to people who have never been tested for CV-19 and many not taking any real safety precautions. Same goes with eating out at a restaurant, getting gas, shopping at the store, going to the gym or visiting friends. There is no standard protocol for the general population now or this coming academic year.
Contrast that with that with the people she will come in contact with on a controlled campus, pretty much every one will be subject to the same strict procedures and safety rules as she herself is subject to and they have said they will crack down and anyone violating these rules.
Of course, there will be exception to the rule, some kids are going to go to off campus parties or not abiding by the social distancing or mask wearing requirement but I’m not yet convinced that the risk is that much greater for the vast majority of the on campus, rule following students versus staying home and not being on campus.
The discussion about schools in the most recent TWIV begins around minute 40.
If colleges are successful in creating Covid free bubbles thru initial testing and quarantine it would seem the weak links would be primarily the “non-compliant” who leave campus when requested not to or those students who are living off campus but mingling with those on campus or using campus facilities when they should not be.
That’s what they claim. I don’t believe it will happen.
Risks vary for different student, different family, and in different situations. How would you rate, comparatively, the risks for staying 1) on campus in a single; 2) on campus in a double; 3) off campus in a single; or 4) at home, for your student and for others s/he interacts with.
The level of exposure at home will vary significantly. We have not been eating at restaurants, going to gyms, or going to jobs, and the little shopping my children do has been masked and in some cases, gloved (hauling bags of mulch at HD). Only socializing has been outdoors in backyards or on the beach during the evening.
Exposure at college will be massively multiplied, just by use of the hall bathroom.
DS19 has not left the house since his school shut down in mid-March except to go for solo walks. Now to be fair, he is WFH and that takes up much of his time. Most of his friends are also WFH too and are equally busy. None of them in any case are partiers and they tend to follow the rules especially as it relates to Covid. They are pretty concerned about catching the virus so they mostly socialize with each other online.
What is TWIV? this week in ???
@gwnorth what is WFH?
Work from home; This Week in Virology (a podcast)
I too wish people would spell out abbreviations.
Has there been a successful case of A large organisational bubble bring able to avoid the virus?
Because so far, the best practice seems to be to ask people to stick at home with their families and minimise working out of home. Small bubbles not large ones, easier to control.