Michigan also has similar policy. There are some exceptions but very few. They did give a partial refund last March though you had to leave campus (my son stayed). They are very prepared to go full online if needed. He has 2 classes remote, 2 live and one hybrid. Everyone has the option to do full remote this year so having choices are good. Kids going to campus (around 7200 freshman) all understand what they are up against. No one is forcing them to attend live. It will be interesting to see besides internationals that can’t come over how many domestic kids will actually stay home for full remote? My guess, it will be a small number.
Testing /mask wearing is essential and required. Not going to follow the rules then you won’t be there long.
Various officials in Sweden have said that they wish they’d continued their policies of not closing things, and allowed widespread spread of covid, but protected seniors better. But no part of the world has figured out how to protect seniors if covid is widespread in a community.
I think by mid to late Sept some colleges would have done this well an some not so well. This is similar to the summer camp situation. In GA there is the camp where 1/2 the kids who were there ended up sick after only running the camp for a week. Then there is a camp in NC and one in Maine that ran this summer with out cases. One camp, Modin, tested everyone mid camp and not a single positive in 1700 tests. they brought staff in sooner than the camp in GA. Did not allow anyone to leave, all kids had a home test first, and tested again upon arrival. i forgot the name of the camp in NC , but in their case they insisted on masks and small groups.
So in the same way , I think colleges will go.
The young people will always seem to find a way to gather. not all but many. The states that have outbreaks go back to the younger set. So whether they are in their college towns/campuses or back home, I dont know that it will do anything to contain this virus.
A friend asked me last night when do i think things will go back to any normal, as she doubts people will line up for a vaccine. My answer was that once we do have better treatments, but also at some point when we accept this is part of society and wont be going away (similar to flu), if the vaccines dont work; AT some point there will be a sort of herd immunity. Similar to a forest fire in an area with dry kindle everywhere, if that fire hits water it slows down. When an outbreak occurs with the virus it spreads like crazy, and there are other waves, but i think the R factor becomes less. This is just my opinion. My timeframe from when everyone will tire like some of the young people have, is by next spring. Fall 2021 will be schools in person.
@Knowsstuff I guess everyone has to decide how risk adverse they are and if they would be willing to lose a few thousand dollars in room and board if they are sent home. Most schools have said that sending kids home is their very last resort so let’s hope it just doesn’t happen!
@homerdog. Yep. Different schools have different abilities also to tackle this and can be frustrating also. Even the Presidents kid school is not opening… Lol…
@cardinalfang: actually the “let covid spread” strategy was quickly dismissed by officials - by April they said it had never been their strategy, whether it had or hadn’t been previously (and statements made in March would support the idea that it was.) In June, Tegnell said he’d have advised something between “not closing” and “lockdown”. But he’s been under intense pressure due to Sweden being banned (the virus circulation is still high compared to many countries, especially nearby countries; Swedes are used to being admired or seen as leaders and don’t like the new feeling of being pariahs) and there is an inquiry about the response’s failings in order to improve that response by the time the second wave comes around - not just into the nursing homes but overall. For instance, testing/tracing has been deemed “in need of improvement”. Half the deaths came from nursing homes: as you say, no country has figured how to protect seniors if covid is widespread, but if covid wasn’t widespread, Sweden should have done better… or, if covid was widespread then it means that Sweden’s policy made it so, since with the exact same patterns its neighbors contained it.
Swedes respected their government’s recommendation not to visit nursing homes but asymptomic health care workers hadn’t been taken into account in the plan, so that’s one area currently being investigated. Tegnell is now saying that even though there were way more deaths and no economic benefit compared to other Scandinavian countries, the benefit may be in creating immunity - but there has been major pushback since there’s no data about it. Tegnell at this point is on thin ice.
A study about contamination in schools was conducted by the “minister of education”, but its data is a bit disingenuous: it includes 16-19 year olds who were not in school, which skews the data. With these included, there’s no difference between contamination among students in Sweden (K-9 open, 10-13 closed) and in Denmark (schools closed), but since the 16-19 group couldn’t be contaminated in school, removing them from the data would likely show higher contamination in school-age kids or teachers. Right now, in fact, that government study is considered so skewed that scientists consider that no study was conducted on Swedish school children, thus missing a huge opportunity. It’s designated as “to be improved”.
[all countries/governments have a powerful incentive in “proving” that their approach was the best … including by suppressing or skewing data.]
As I understand it, Sweden had a policy of not testing students who weren’t symptomatic, even in outbreaks (by the way this is infuriating for epidemiologists), so we really can’t look at the data and make comparisons between Sweden and other countries about schools.
I have been reading this thread sporadically. If this has been discussed…then just carry on.
Once the college kids are on campus, the prudent thing would be to keep them on campus until the semester is done - no parents weekend, homecoming, mid semester break, Thanksgiving etc. Are the parents/students prepared to not see each other for 4-5 months, especially the freshmen. It sounds like some schools would like to clear the campus over Thanksgiving to do some cleaning. What would you do with your students during the break(s), especially if you have some high risk people in your family.
@oldfort - No breaks, no parents weekend, no visitors period at D’s school for the entire semester. Thank goodness for FaceTime! School runs straight through until Thanksgiving and then everyone goes home. Finals will be online. So, yes we are prepared.
PS. I think most schools that are having students return have a similar plan.
I don’t see not seeing your student for 4 months as that big a deal. Families do this all the time and everyone survives. For example, for D20’s (now I should call her gap D21) college they move in August 6th and are home for two months starting November 25th. In spring, they are starting a week later and getting rid of spring break so that’s January 20th - May 1. If parents (especially ones within driving distance) really wanted to see their students, I’m sure they could stay in the college town and spend some time outdoors (weather permitting) with their student. Remember, these students are starting to become adults and independent (18-21 year olds). It’s going to be ok…
Son’s school originally said that we are not closing the dorms again even if there was an outbreak and there would be no refunds. This information played into our decision to get an off campus apartment for him. We were thinking that if we have to pay anyway, at least we have a place for him to stay that won’t be as confined and as potentially infected as the dorms. Now they have said that if they have to close they will give refunds. I still think that they will do everything in their power not to close the dorms again.
My son’s school is only sample testing at dorm moving and then testing off campus only if they are symptomatic and call the health service. My son has told me that if he gets sick, he is just going to stay in the apartment and do classes remotely until he feels better. He says that he will only call the health service if he gets really sick and feels he should go to the hospital. He is concerned that calling for mild symptoms will get him isolated and his friends quarantined. You essentially get punished for doing the right thing. I’m sure many others are thinking the same way and this is why there will probably be an outbreak. How severe and whether they need to go all online remains to be seen.
Regarding the seasonal flu: I think many colleges will require and/or provide the flu shot when it becomes available.
Many adults do get their flu shot at their workplace, which for many who now work from home is not going to happen. That may be problematic
I was hoping to get S a flu shot before he leaves for Maine but they won’t be available before that. I think he can just get one at Walgreens near their house. We can get them at the Walgreens here in our town. I will make sure he figures out how to get one. Last year he got one on campus but that’s not an option this time.
I would think the bigger concern for many people is that they will see their kid before 4-5 months and it will result in their kid living in their childhood bedroom because bringing college kids back didn’t work at the given school. We have only seen my daughter once each Fall between dropping her off in the fall and her coming home at Thanksgiving. So I don’t think going without that one visit will be problematic. I agree it could be more of an issue with freshmen. May be beneficial (from the kids perspective in terms of indendence) for kids with parents who like to visit often. Depends on the kid/family.
Thanksgiving will be a tougher issue (I think). Most of the schools I have seen are having the kids leave at Thansgiving and not come back to campus until next semester. Makes a lot of sense in that you have kids all living together, going back home across the state/region/country, meeting with family members (who themselves may have traveled to be there). Last thing you would want is for those students to all come back together for a week or two of classes and then finals (and then have them go back home again). How do you have them self quarantine for 12 weeks when they won’t be back that long (or much longer than that)?
But what to do once they get home for break is a tougher case. I have talked with several parents recently who are not too focused on that issue right now. Thought seems to me you deal with it when you get there. It may be the case that kids are back home before the end of October and thus can just quarantine before Thanksgiving. Cases may be low at that point (or growing). Don’t know what that looks like yet. And there are a lot of things that come between now and then that seem to be primary focus. And ultimately, I expect there will different approaches. Some will be viewed as being too cautious and others will be reviewed as reckless/irresponsible. So ultimately a lot like what is happening now.
@oldfort My student’s college moved the start of the semester up, eliminated the Fall Break and has finals scheduled before Thanksgiving. So – assuming they don’t have an early shutdown – my student will come back to AZ the day before Thanksgiving and not return to college in MI until January. No coming home for mid-semester breaks for us. The college is discouraging but not prohibiting students from leaving campus during the semester. The college draws heavily from in state so those are obviously the most likely to go home for weekends, etc. There are also lots of students from Chicago and an Amtrak line from a campus station to Chicago that is used a lot in normal times.
As for us, once our student comes home, I guess we’ll do a two week quarantine at home as best we can. The weather here will be nice by then so maybe some sort of outdoor Thanksgiving dinner? I figure I’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, since I fear there’s a good chance they will end up shutting down early.
Well, H started today. They are having a staff meeting from 8-3:30 - all 50+ teachers in the gym. I saw the set-up yesterday, as I had to help H set up his new laptop. The child sized desks have 4 feet of clearance. I guess they might have 6’ between people nose to nose? They are all masked at least, but still. 7+ full hours in there together.
The GA Tech calculator says for a group 50 in our city, there is an 81% chance that one of them is already infected. It will be OK, right? Right? Of course, I haven’t seen a mask in my building all day - and our new cases increased by 33% in the last 8 days. Sigh.
Unless the lab the college contracted with is a reference lab that is more capable of handling big volume testing with enough staffing, then it will not be an issue to meet demands albeit do not expect a quick turnaround time to get results. Lacorp, Quests, Siemens, Spectra, etc are some of the biggest labs in the US but with the widespread coronavirus nationwide, they are also experiencing a lot of backlog.
I work in an area hospital lab (NY) and we are experiencing surge in test volumes with critical staffing shortage. We are also a trauma center and performs open heart surgeries. We have an instrument that do PCR covid testing but we limit it to ER and inpatients. There’s so many reasons why this is limited. Its kits/ supplies availability (some are made in Italy or outside the US), instrument availability and limitation- ours has 16 slots available that not only runs covid but flu, RSV, and Cdiff. A covid test will run for 52 mins. Staffing-our profession is a dying breed. You need someone licensed in NY state to run the tests!!! There’s fewer and fewer people are getting in to do this work.
I find it ironic that we hear testing and lab maybe thousand times a day in the news and radio but people don’t realize what’s involved for the labs to be able to do function properly with the right resources. And FYI people, not all tests are created equal. For now PCR is the way to go. Those point of care testing kits for covid are not as sensitive and specific for the virus. Know what kind of test you guys are going to do.
… including by suppressing or skewing data.]