I didn’t read everything today but had a patient from University of Wisconsin just now. They are splitting up their discussion sections to make them smaller and adding nights and weekend classes to have as many in person classes as possible…
Not a bad solution to attempt to have smaller classes. Why can’t others do this?
EyeVee, Not quite understanding this, can you explain how it works in more detail?
Three student dorms in Germany have been quarantined after three students tested positive in two dorms. The third dorm was quarantined because the positive students had so many contacts there. A further ten have shown symptoms. They have tested all 188 students in residence. Results expected tomorrow.
Universities in the area, if they are even still in session, have been completely online for the semester, but dorms in Germany are administrated by various non profits, students rent out single rooms, often for the duration of their studies, and universities have no control over whether they stayed or what they did.
Masks are still mandatory in stores and on public transport nationwide, clubs and bars are closed, restaurants are open with masks and spaced out tables, indoors and out. However, state regulations allow up to ten people to meet up without distancing or masks in public, and there are no restrictions, just recommendations about meeting in private.
So, parties. A lot of the drinking will have been outdoors, the weather having been so fine, apparently it’s not enough. If there’s any interesting results from the mass testing, I’ll keep you posted.
It is reasonable that a planned online/distance education format this fall will be better than the emergency online/distance education format done with no notice in the spring, even though it may not necessarily be as good as in-person education for some students and some courses.
My wife’s niece is a junior at UWisc and she is happy as can be with what the school the school has been doing under the circumstances. Her mom maybe not quite as much. Miles ahead of everyone else
Are we supposed to assume that this student is a particularly stupid student? When the people who initially contacted him explained that he was exposed to covid, he might become infected, if he did become infected he would show positive on a test some time within the next fourteen days, but not right away: did he not understand it?
Or are we supposed to think that he’s not stupid, but he just doesn’t care that he might be incubating the virus and, if released to his dorm, might infect other people?
Did this stupid or uncaring student not agreed as a condition of returning to his campus that he submit to quarantine? Or does he think he’s a special snowflake who shouldn’t do what he agreed to do?
As you can tell, I don’t have a lot of patience with this. Decide to return to campus and submit to the rules, or decide to stay away, but don’t agree to do something inconvenient and then say you don’t want to do it because it’s inconvenient.
He’s obviously in a fraternity…
@Knowsstuff - Purdue is doing the same as WI in terms of adding sections to reduce class size. I believe ND is as well and that is the plan at many schools.
I would like to believe this, but just to have something to hang my hat on, I would like to see a compare and contrast of the emergency remote learning offerings from last spring vs what is expected this fall. I would like to see a compare and contrast of the remote learning offerings by the formerly in person schools with the offering of the “traditional” ground up online universities, the so called Global Universities who are fairly transparent about what they offer and what they expect. But I have little to no details regarding what is being offered or how it has been improved or why I should think it’s better than online community college. Did I miss the briefings?
Do you have a source for this? Among the states [NY Magazine](States Where Coronavirus is Increasing: A List of Hot Spots) lists as hot spots are Arizona, Texas, Florida, and California. The [University of Minnesota Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy (CIDRAP)](Hospitalizations up in Arizona, Texas, Florida as US nears 3 million COVID-19 cases | CIDRAP) said Tuesday that 3 of them (AZ, TX, and FL) have hospitalization and ICU admissions rising “at an alarming rate.”
[In Arizona](AZ coronavirus update: ER visits, hospitalizations hit new records), cases increased by over 160% in the last 3 weeks, but testing increased by only 75%. Hospitalizations and ICU use has been increasing there at a steady rate since at least mid-June. In Texas, [hospitalizations in North Texas hospitals](https://www.utsouthwestern.edu/covid-19/assets/modeling.pdf) are 30% higher than they were last week, and nearly 175% higher than last month. [Hospitalizations in LA County](L.A. County sees 'alarming' rise in coronavirus hospitalizations, infection rates) have increased over 40% in the last 3 weeks.
People aren’t admitted to the hospital unless they’re sick.
So D20 had a call with her academic advisor today. The advisor said that lecture classes will likely be online but will also have smaller discussion groups which she thinks will be very effective.
In addition, she said D’s language and writing classes (required) are small classes and likely in-person unless the professor opts-out. I think her college is leaving it up to the individual professor on how they want to teach the class (which I personally think is the right thing to do).
So this is encouraging news. 1/3 to 1/2 of her class instruction might be in-person?
You know how they have those “Rate my Professor” sites that rates professors on how hard a grader they are, how well they teach, etc. Well I can now see students evaluating teachers for how young or old they are, whether they are tenured or not and whether they are likely to “opt-out” of in-person instruction!
The Big Ten on Thursday announced it will be going to a conference-only season for all fall sports, including football, amid “unprecedented times” during the coronavirus pandemic.
[quote=“Cardinal_Fang, post:10227, topic:2088334”]
I can’t speak for the OP here but I am supposing that someone will be collecting the food orders and bringing them over to everyone in lock down and I would suppose that special considerations will be needed from their teachers and a bunch of other stuff they may need while they are separated could add up to be quite a bit of additional services if the number of detainees starts to increase exponentially
That’s exactly what we were thinking until the last day for the professors to make their opt out choice and all the in person classes went to online
We’re still a few weeks away from practices scheduled to resume in the NCAA. Several programs have already had to suspend voluntary training, which began several weeks ago, due to positive tests. I think most people on the ground believe we haven’t yet seen widespread announcements like the Ivy League because they don’t have to make them yet. No one doubts the fall season is on very thin ice.
It’s true the financial incentives play a role. And some think this is going to be the perfect catalyst for the FBS schools to break from the NCAA in some way. We’ll see. I’m not sure the NCAA needs to pick that fight. Does anyone really see UW football traveling to Arizona in the fall, or vice versa? Or Duke to Miami? And what about state-level quarantine requirements, which are likely to multiply?
We’ve already had the Arizona president admit that he’d have a hard time bringing students back under current conditions. Hard to justify putting athletes at risk under the same circumstances. They might try, but the Ivy announcement is just the start.
There is no greek housing on campus this year at Duke…no more assigned dorm sections for any selected living groups, greek or not. The upper class students had to re-register for housing and they will not necessarily even be in the same dorm or quad as was previously assigned for their housing. Some will be in apartments and the Washington Duke hotel, to decrease dorm density. On a positive note, admin let the students reapply for housing in groups up to 10 max and each group will be housed in adjacent rooms. This way, the students will have a built in family pod around them. But they made it perfectly clear that they are not going to try to keep multiple groups that may be in the same fraternity/sorority/other selective groups together in the same dorms…this is more in line with their ‘no gatherings of more than 10 people’ philosophy.
@“Cardinal Fang”
That’s a lot stupid…I lost count.
My scenario was not for someone who knew they were infected or who had been around others who are. The difficulty in managing this is that students will come in contact with dozens of people every few days, and when one of them tests positive all of the contacts need to isolate as well. On any campus, contact tracing done well could take dozens of kids “off the streets” and into their rooms (or a quarantine location).
Stupidity isn’t going about your business as agreed, it’s believing that schools will somehow be able to manage outbreaks. The delay in symptoms you mention ensures that everyone on campus who tests positive will accidentally take several others out of the population.
When that happens, a professor with a few kids who A ) were in the last classroom session, and B ) tested positive…will take the class online for a while, if not permanently.
@user4321 - Every class this year will include kids who either stayed home, are in quarantine, or just didn’t want to go to class via Zoom (or similar). After about a week, the kids in the room will realize they are interacting mostly via Zoom with other kids, who BTW aren’t wearing a mask and are sitting at their own desk or on their bed, drinking from open containers and snacking. A much as everyone wants to be back in class, they won’t be anything like normal.
If you are dealing with others via technology, there are no activities or sports or parties where you meet people outside of your existing friend group / residence hall neighbors, and you have to wear masks everywhere…would you rather be home? By October, I’m guessing the resounding answer will be Yes.
Because even small classes will have kids spaced out in a room that is so big that they can’t discuss. And the professor will be masked and/or have a shield and won’t be able to hear the kids that are more than five rows up. Small discussion classes are what is “possible” because of social distancing but it doesn’t mean they will be good.
Why is this person in quarantine if they haven’t been known to be around someone who was infected?
@austinmshauri - AZ department of public health’s dashboard shows covid hospitalizations have been decreasing since the high in mid June. https://www.azdhs.gov/preparedness/epidemiology-disease-control/infectious-disease-epidemiology/covid-19/dashboards/index.php.
All the models that I’m seeing continue to show very, very low mortality rates for our college age students.
AZ did have 8 fatalities of young people though so the risk is certainly not 0% but all the CDC data I’ve seen says to date, more college age students die every year of the flu and non covid related pneumonia, than of covid-19. Again, I’ll add the caveat of “so far”.