The point is that the infected employees were not on campus. Not at the time of diagnosis, nor afterward. In some cases, like Baylor medical center, they were literally hundreds of miles from the college campus.
I also have one of each. D21’s hs recently announced they will be having classes 100% remote until further notice. The community college where she takes dual enrollment classes each semester is also 100% online or remote. While, in a perfect world, she would rather be back in person, she has severe asthma and that makes her apprehensive about going back in person. She will be fine with remote classes, although it’s not ideal. At least she is swimming again with her club team (with strict distancing guidelines).
D20 is a freshman going to FSU. Her classes are mostly remote with one class online. But they are opening the dorms and she will be there in a couple of weeks with classes starting Aug 24. FSU seems to have outlined fairly strict guidelines for distancing, masks, etc. They have their own testing center on campus and require all students to check in there to be tested before move-in. I honestly have no idea how this whole great experiment will go. According to the NYT article, FSU apparently only reported one case and it was an athlete.
We don’t really have the ability to keep her home at this time, because she will lose her full ride scholarship if she does not live on or near campus. So, we are rolling the dice and hoping for the best. I’m definitely anxious about it.
The UConn-affiliated hospital is in Farmington, CT and is around a 45 minute drive away from the main Storrs campus. To the best of my knowledge, students would have no reason to go to this hospital. So the medical center is not on the campus, increasing the risk of COVID.
If a Princeton employee is only working from home, and got COVID at their home location, and hasn’t returned to the Princeton campus, why would that count as a “Princeton university” case? Would seem to have occurred independent of where they work, and not impact the campus?
@milgymfam Sorry, GKUniversity is how I refer to my son’s school. I try not to overtly broadcast personally identifying info about him.
Over the years, it’s become more and more indoor due to the high number of kids with allergies, asthma, and other issues. He said he even has one who is allergic to sunlight. But, he says he’s now thinking about ways how to do more outdoors again. But at this point nobody has a clue what a school day will look like when kids come back.
Wow! Moving on.
But your post,@cardinalfang, is exactly the problem with the NYT article-you extrapolated that the infected employees at Baylor med center, (Houston,) must pose a risk to the students 200 miles away on the college’s campus in Waco. Exactly the same problem UConn had, where the medical center is in a different city than the campus. That is why many of us think the article is a serious disservice. It tells nothing about the risk to students on campus, but casual readers think it does.
For some posters, any cases in the same county or state may be cause for concern. But the Times article doesn’t even tell us that-it just tells us that the infected all had the same employer, a specific university. Similar data could be obtained, for example, for employees of the federal or state government, or any large employer. If you are going to be worried, at least have an accurate understanding of the numbers that worry you.
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Did you read the article or the response from UCONN which is illustrative of the problem? Right now, It doesn’t matter a hoot that X number of people in March/April/May that happen to be employed by UCONN had the virus. Especially if they they were never on campus, EVER. The story has no point whatsoever except click bait.
I have two college kids taking two different paths. D17 had not signed an off-campus lease for her school in Los Angeles, and has decided she would prefer to stay home in San Diego for her online classes. S20, a recruited athlete, will be going to his mid-sized university. As of now, dorms open and he has a roommate who is a teammate. He had a Zoom call with his team today and the coach told them that they are supposed to be setting an example on campus. Any social media postings of gatherings without masks will not be looked upon well. Freshman will be moving in over a 3 day period at the end of August. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, so I guess it’s time to get our plane tickets and plan our purchase of his dorm necessities.
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[quote=“Faithabove, post:12060, topic:2088334”]
Are you reading that herd immunity is possible? Do you have any links? The most recent thing I saw, but didn’t read in detail, was that doctors and researchers now think herd immunity isn’t possible with this virus because people don’t maintain the antibodies to it for long. It is possible we do retain some type of immune response in things like t cells and etc, but not in IgG for long.
/quote]
No I haven’t read too much on herd immunity. I wonder how Sweden is doing. One day will we all see. Let’s hope for the best!
“What new information is the article providing us if they lumped students and college employees who tested positive for Covid on campus during the time the colleges were open in March WITH students and employees who tested positive weeks and months later - never having stepped foot on campus when testing positive? The numbers they are reporting are absolutely meaningless.”
I think most can understand what the point of the article is, and its not good. Esp more disheartening to take advantage of parents’/students/staff emotions. SMH.
Who said the contagious people were on campus/school though? In fact most schools have been remote/closed with only public safety, some custodians and perhaps lab researchers on site.
You are answering a different question it seems.
Hmm, even more disingenuous on the part of the NYT – the headline, gist of the article – we all know what the intent of their “eye-catching” article was about. The fact that they put a few disclaimers so they CYA (well CTA!), and buried it, all the more shows that they were not stupid, they knew what they were doing. One would feel better about this perhaps if they actually didn’t realize these critical issues about the data and that they went ahead and stupidly published, and then issued a correction.
Wiser people have said the worst kind of lie is the one that is partially true. So there you have it - they went ahead and projected conclusions (knowing full well news outlets like Inside Higher Ed would pick this article up and talk about why colleges can’t open and why staff/faculty so fearful, etc) when they knew that is not an accurate conclusion that an unwitting public should draw from their article. The data was the data -right? It was true. But their conclusion, or the one they seem to want the public to take away, was not.
What’s the saying - fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. Well, I won’t be fooled again by them! 
By the way, let me be gullible and ask so exactly what is the point of the article? Hmm. Would it be like me taking a survey of everyone named Smith in the entire country, and finding X% test positive and Y% died. And publish that. For what? So that other Smiths should change their behavior? Or that somehow Smiths get more sick and should be fearful? And of course, put a small disclaimer that the Smiths all caught it at different times and locations. Nonsense. But but but… the Smiths answered my survey and provided the data… it must be ok.
Parents, staff, students, communities are trying to do their best, fraught with all sorts of emotions, they do not need to be taken advantaged of further like this.
Anyway back to regular programming!
I saw this on the news yesterday. I have continued to research refund policies of schools to mostly find that most will not provide refunds for medical withdrawals and if they do it is only prorated or for tuition only.
Not all that surprising to see this news story.
University students in Arizona buy tuition insurance, worried about COVID-19 https://www.azfamily.com/news/continuing_coverage/coronavirus_coverage/university-students-in-arizona-buy-tuition-insurance-worried-about-covid-19/article_1601b382-d2df-11ea-b43b-2b0ce83566fb.html?
College freshman kiddo attending online classes only, from home (1st years were not invited to campus.)
Middle school kiddo starting a convoluted hybrid schedule that translates roughly into 25% in person, 25% on line, and 50% non instructional time. Local families with elementary kids are losing their minds trying to figure out childcare.
We are in a state doing relatively well controlling covid (knock on wood.)
S24 will be remote learning in his bedroom, his college changed from hybrid to all remote with no one invited to the campus. Our HS junior will also be 100% including dual enrollment classes at community college. Our school district has said the kids won’t be back to f2f school until our city gets to Phase 4, which would means the virus is completely gone (hoping that does not end up being true because I don’t see that happening before she grqduates) We are in a city that was an early hotspot and have had rising numbers for at least 4 weeks and counting.
@raincat If you don’t mind sharing, which college was that?
There were a couple of cases in my state which were changed by the state health department from non-covid to covid deaths even though the local medical examiners had rule them as other things. One guy had a blood alcohol content of over .500, so that was the cause of death but he also tested positive for covid. This was in April or May and they were trying to attribute everything to covid and there was some federal money involved (if even just for PPE or testing costs).
I think those games are over but could still be part of the past reported numbers.
My daughter’s college reported the death of a student and clearly stated the cause of death was ‘pneumonia - non covid’ That school has also reported the number of students who have had covid, and the number was really low, like 5, and all not on campus when tested.
Yep. My college is using Broad to test all faculty and staff twice a week. Students will join the testing as they return in August. As of now, most results are back in 24 hours. The quick turnaround has been helpful because no one is allowed on campus without regular negative tests.
The state college D21 attends for some of her dual credit courses will also use Broad Institute. D21 will be tested along with all the fulltime students, starting mid-August.
Looks like the entire northeast is using Broad Institute…?