NY/NJ and CT/MA got to where we are (I’m in NY) because we shut down our economy which is still at less than 50%. Yes, the number of Covid cases is down but the fallout is tremendous. It wan’t hard work - it was a stop order. I won’t list all the other negative effects of doing this. We won’t know until long into the future if this was truly the best or right approach. Only in hindsight will we know if a balanced economic and public health policy was best or if the stop order was best.
In my area of NYS there was no community testing during the height of our outbreak and there is still no walk-in testing. You need a script from a doctor or to be in a certain group such as a healthcare worker or stylist.
This is a pandemic that will ebb and flow. The one thing the NYS government learned is not to release patients to nursing homes so that is one tremendous mistake that we can assume won’t be repeated again.
NYS is vast and varied where we need schools to reopen. Much of the state is nothing like NYC. Let’s hope we are not all treated again the same and our children can get educated and have a life.
I agree. NYS numbers are down because the state instituted a “Pause” that includes staying at home as much as possible and social distancing/mask wearing when we do have to go out. We’ve also had to do a lot of testing and contact tracing to get the numbers down. It should be noted that included in those numbers are the deaths of many, many New Yorkers.
But the risk from Covid isn’t over. People from all over the country are on our highways every day. NYS has set up electronic signs on the Thruway, bridge approaches, and on local highways that flash reminders about mask wearing and social distancing. In the governor’s ~30 minute press briefings he encourages New Yorkers not to get complacent because if we do, we’ll be right back where we started.
Have you been to NYS? Those are the rules we’ve been living by for over 3 months. I have zero interest in giving “prizes” to college students as a reward for following state laws. They’re misguided if they think that’s the way our system works. Mask wearing and social distancing aren’t suggestions. They’re the law. People who choose to ignore our laws face fines of up to $10k. In addition to hefty fines, college students can be suspended and/or expelled from school. Good luck explaining that on a transfer application.
@Empireapple I have to respectfully disagree with your characterizations. Yes it was a shut-down order in those states with devastating impacts on parts of the economy - but lots of hard work as well with procuring PPE, ventilators, hospital capacity, as well as feeding families, providing masks, educating the public, changes in public transortation- just a massive undertaking. The nursing home situation was a tragedy in NY/NJ, but surely that is not the only lesson the northeast learned thru all of this.
You are correct - NY as well as NJ/CT/MA have very different pockets in their respective states, so a one size fits all approach for schools is not the answer
Circuitrider, I find this very strange. First, it is not “according to me”. According to Harvard’s website: “More than 97 percent of Harvard undergrads choose to live on campus for all four years, creating a strong campus community and undergraduate experience.” So I was slightly mistaken, sorry, it WAS 98% last year, but now it is “more than 97%”, a teeny shift. I did not make this up; it is not “according to me”. But for all intents and purposes, they have housing for their entire 100% population (they actually do have housing for about 110%, since they have been doing house renovations and have taken over the Harvard Inn, so they have this extra swing housing, and could pause renovations this year to have capacity for over 100% (~110%) of students.
So, with housing for >100% of their students, the vast majority of which is in suites with lots of single bedrooms (many suites with 4+ kids each in their own single bedroom), if their goal was singles for all, it is pretty clear they could house approximately 70%-80%+ of their entire population in singles on campus. In a normal year, they have space for all students and very little of that is in traditional double bedrooms. That would mean inviting back at least 2 and up to 3+ classes (assuming some kids stay home due to international issues, underlying conditions, etc).
The Mather discussion is interesting. I would not agree that the whole world would deem tall buildings utterly unsafe–there are many people living in their homes in high-rises in NYC, Chicago, etc or going to work, using elevators. (Tedious) protocols have been put in place to make the elevators safer, but let’s just for the sake of argument agree that floors above the 6th floor should get left empty. So they would lose 66% of Mather. Mather is only 6% of total housing (75% of students are upperclassmen; they are roughly equally divided into the 12 houses, putting ~6% of all Harvard students in Mather.). Then if Harvard used only the lower 6 floors, this would only disqualify ~4% of total housing, and I don’t even think every campus in America (or homes/offices) are saying everyone must abandon buildings with elevators. So if they have housing for 110% of students and you subtract the 4% of housing that you deem unusable from Mather, they still have housing for over 100% of students, and probably singles for 70-80%. There is no chance they only have singles for the 30-40% of students they invited back.
However, I am certainly NOT making an argument for their “noblesse oblige”. Harvard has made clear their reasoning is about making health and safety paramount, but also about preserving this 400 year old institution. I think they are being very, very cautious because they believe they cannot risk a disaster for the sake of the institution. In my opinion, they are prioritizing in this order: the institution and its long-standing reputation, the faculty and staff, the Cambridge community at-large, and then the students. That may or may not be the “right” order depending on your point-of-view. A lot of parents would like to see the students prioritized higher, of course. This decision for school in the fall is so multi-faceted and difficult!!
But what is unbelievably crystal clear is that their plan of just bringing back the freshmen who want to come is NOT the plan that would maximize revenue for them. Aside from not filling their dorms, they are actually PAYING most students to stay home (giving the financial aid students $10,000 for the year for not coming). You said, “Take my word for it, there will be no empty single rooms at Harvard”, and it is clear that that is incorrect.
PS It’s odd you call the Harvard students “mostly rich”. How often do you have to read that 55% of students (“MOST”) at Harvard are on financial aid, and the average bill for parents is $12,000 per year, and for 90% of Americans the cost of attending Harvard is less than the cost of attending their state school? Harvard is probably quite different than you are picturing. Sure there are some/many very affluent students, but you can find them at pretty much all colleges, too. But most Harvard students are not “rich”.
Georgia Tech has put together a neat Event Risk Assesment tool that allows users to select a group size and then see the % chance that someone at the event has COVID-19 for almost every county in the US. https://covid19risk.biosci.gatech.edu/
Since most schools districts follow county lines this it’s very valuable for K-12. For colleges the numbers will change when the students show up.
When I select 25 people as the group size (seems like a likely group size for students) here are some counties mentioned here:
Columbus OH: 44%
Dallas: 72%
Denton County: 31% (suburb of Dallas)
Atlanta: 60:
Forsyth County: 30% (suburb of Atlanta)
Cook County/Chicago: 24% (suburbs are basically the same)
LA county: 59%
Denver: 26%
Douglas County: 16% (suburb of Denver)
Here are some for colleges:
Bowdoin: less than 1%
U of Michigan: 16%
U of Wisconsin: 47%
Bama: 62%
U of Texas: 75%
Vanderbilt: 85%
Those numbers are all for a group of 25. Here are a few for a group of 100. That’s a easily a frat party or a HS football game with zero fans.
U of Michigan: 50%
Denton County: 77% (Dallas suburb)
Cook County/Chicago: 67%
U of Wisconsin: 92%
LA county: 97%
Vanderbilt: greater than 99%
It’s a saliva test that you heat up at home and changes color to tell you if you are positive or negative in 30 minutes.
The article is saying they expect to get FDA fast track approval by next month.
Wonder if they are hoping to distribute these to Purdue students throughout the semester although they previously shared that they can process 1,000 tests/day on campus with 48 hour turn around for results.
In other Purdue news:
A video was shared on Instagram of the modifications to one of the engineering buildings: highlights - limited entrance points manned by staff with hand sanitizer, one way hallways, de-densified classrooms, lounges, and bathrooms, increased ventilation systems, plexiglass installed between professors area and desks, etc… I can’t post the link but I believe it was posted by @Purdueengineers if anyone is interested.
One of the admin people posted on our parent group this morning that they are still working on course offerings for the Fall and the balance of in person/online. The message is they were committed to having all courses necessary for each student to stay on track for 8 semester graduation. My interpretation is that there will be fewer electives this Fall but that makes sense. D’s schedule is still the same but p chem and her lab disappeared temporarily because they are adding more sections. Schedule to be finalized in 10 days, and then the add/drop period begins the next day.
Many posts in this thread referring to one locale getting it right, etc. How can anyone know who got it right or the best way to act at this stage as there is way too much unknown. So many folks on this thread seem to have a crystal ball.
If a vaccine or cure is found, hopefully, then those that were very conservative will have been right, albeit a bit lucky. If this thing drags on and on, which seems quite possible, then ultimately it seems the right answer might be to ensure hospitals are not overwhelmed, and push for masks and distancing indoors, but open up the economy as much as possible.
SIL lives in Norway and told wife that they are being told to no longer wear masks…they were not hit hard but as I understand they put kids back in school without the teachers screaming and all is going ok so far. Norway has a very different culture than US in many respects so who knows what will work.
Nope. At one point I did run NPCs for some Ivies including Harvard and we were full pay. Bowdoin also about 50 percent getting FA. That’s a similar percentage to all schools S looked at - Midd, Davidson, Carleton, Dartmouth etc
The Harvard data presented is meaningful and shows that many students are not in the top 1%, or even top 10% based on family income. It’s simply not correct to categorize Harvard students as ‘mostly rich’.
And why the animosity towards the OP? Seems unwarranted, petty, and unfriendly.
Like most privates, I imagine, we pay a tuition refund insurance policy each semester through he college., i.e., it’s part of the bill.
I’m curious if folks have read or heard that this will kick in if a student is unable to finish the semester b/c of falling ill with COVID? There’s not an exclusion or anything?
While my D’s health is obviously my main concern, it’s crossed my mind that if she were sick and had to withdraw, that would be a big financial hit. We don’t have a lot of wiggle room for her college $$.
I didn’t directly compare, but when I got the semester’s bill it did seem like maybe it was higher this semester, making me wonder if it’d gone up considering the greater risk this year.
I plan to ask the college directly, but curious what folks have heard from their kids’ schools just to have some reference points.
Nature works on its own and doesn’t follow any timelines based on political calendars or anything else we mere mortals set up. Viruses will poke holes and find the weakest links in our defenses to attack. Our reopening strategies are disparate and CDC reopening guidelines, with the WH singing to a different tune, were ignored at almost every state. Is there any surprise that the most aggressive and the least prepared states in reopening are the ones seeing the biggest resurgences of the virus? School reopening is likely to follow the same script. The most aggressive and the least prepared will more likely to suffer the consequences.
Not recently, no. But I understand NYS to be very much an exception, not only in regard of restrictions and enforcement of compliance, but also in regard of the responsibility the administration takes in whether schools open up and how. It sounds as if in many other states, every college is thing to reinvent the corona wheel for themselves.
Not prizes. Just some empathy for very young adults who probably feel that in other parts of the country, everyone’s out there vacationing and partying, and they face hard isolation.
NYS hasn’t reopened in any meaningful sense. When the k12 schools are back in actual session and subways are full again (which may happen in 2022?) We can better judge the results. Until then we will have outbreaks and calm periods,and then the virus will mutate and we start again. Too early for anyone to declare victory anywhere
I agree with this. Not sure where this idea that everyone in NY/NJ/CT are kicking up their heels is coming from? Maybe, those clips of the crowds on Memorial Day? I admit that the young people are a mixed bag. I wear my mask so much that I have to remind myself to remove it when the streets are deserted (as they occasionally are in small town CT.) I contrast this to my relatives in rural NC who tell me they are actually afraid to be seen in public with masks because they are universally viewed as being - well, you can guess the rest.
So I just read my son’s engineering covid protocols which pretty much mimic the general school with a few exceptions like their opening up some halls and buildings for study purposes, which I would of expected anyway.
But their covid rules are “very” clear and stated over and over in different ways. My son has gotten at least like maybe 6 updates plus department emails, plus university emails, plus club.
You get the idea… Lol…
After this no student can pretend “not” to know what the rules of behavior on campus will be. Plus us parents have gotten a slew of emails so… If any kiddo goes off the deep end and not follow them maybe, just maybe, they shouldn’t be going to college. Staying home might be the best alternative for them.
My son runs a club on campus and he just found out that the “clubapolooza” will be online this year. Kids used to go table to table to checkout clubs with activities, bands etc all around. His club usually has several hundred kids sign up at least.
There is a lot coming out of Purdue today as it’s the first day of summer start. Latest is on dining. The food courts have a multiline system - one for on the go options (which was always a thing at Purdue), and then four color coded lines for different pre-packaged meals. Excerpts from the Purdue exponent article:
“lines aim to give students more variety, as well as cater specific items to vegetarians, vegans and people with food allergies.”
“most meals will include an entree, sides, side salad, fruit, dessert and a drink”.
A dining app will be available for Fall semester to allow menu viewing and pre-ordering for quicker pick up.
Some students are already complaining about the volume of food and not having the all you can eat option of the traditional food court experience. Purdue did include extra swipes this year at the same cost to offset that.
That won’t be an issue for my D but I could see where it would for other students with big appetites or athletes.
PS. Ya’ll will get a break from my posts as I’m heading to work now ; )