^^^Great. Now I have an ear worm. 
Call Broad Institute. I’ve heard they have a test for that. And capacity. 
^Ha ha.
I personally feel having your college student quarantine for 14 days once home is overkill. In general, CV-19 patients are most infectious the first 48 hours (before they have symptoms). If you have a high risk family member or are overly cautious than maybe you “quarantine” your student for 2 to 3 days after they get home and than be careful around them, limiting prolonged exposure in close quarters for a few more days.
Two weeks is a long time and might be very unnecessary for the vast majority of healthy, non high-risk families IMO.
I think you are making the assumption that just because students come home on an airplane they are likely to get CV-19; I just don’t see it that way. There is probably some (1% chance?) of additional risk flying but certainly not a high probablity that you will get the virus (especially if you are diligent with the above mentioned precautions). Remember most airplane ventilation systems are very good and most have HEPA filters for added safety.
I agree that different people will make different plans at Thanksgiving. A lot will depend on circumstances. General health of the parties in attendance. Virus rate at location of meal and where guests are coming from. Can you eat outside. How big is house if its inside. How many people will be there. And given the same circumstances, different people will come to different conclusions.
I am not making an assumption that you are likely to get Covid on an airplane (my son is flying home this weekend for a few days). But compared to car travel, I think there is more risk. At least if car trip doesn’t require multiple stops (particularly overnight) but my family prides ourselves on few (if any) stops on road trips. Given my daughter driving 5 hours by herself home for Thansgiving and my son flying home with a layover in Chicago, I would be more concerned with my son (all other things being equal). Not saying a would treat them differently in terms of quarantine. Just think about it more. And here again different people will reach diffferent conclusions with same underlying facts.
It is definitely vaccine shortage or process delays or both in our area. We just requested our doctors for a test because we (56 & 60 years old) are main caregivers for my mother-in-law (87 years old) who will start her radiation therapy for her lung cancer from this week. We wanted to make sure who to drive for her to / from a hospital everyday. Her radiation therapy was scheduled originally in late March but with stay-at-home order, it was postponed. Her tumor got bigger in 4 months so she cannot delay her treatment any longer. Doctor said that since we (caregivers for a vulnerable lung cancer patient) don’t have symptoms and tests are prioritized for those people who have symptoms and other issues or high-risk occupations / contacts, we aren’t eligible currently but check back in next week. So, we really hope that next week maybe a little different. Our state has been doing 100K-170K tests daily for several weeks. Positive rate is between 5-9%. When they tested less than 120K/day, positive rate went up to 9%.
My son’s school just changed fall semester plan to all online. We knew this was likely coming. I can imagine a recent test shortage / delays was a bigger problem for his school than arranging dorms / housing to have students back to campus. They probably figured out that they just cannot promise an ideal mass testing for students / faculty / staffs in current situations.
My son’s school state (which has been doing better than our state) has a strong recommendation of Covid- test within 72 hours prior to an arrival for all people who return or travel to the state. My son is moving into an apartment near campus. I have requested a test to his doctor here, then asked if he would get a result within 48 hours if his require is approved. If it doesn’t work, since it isn’t mandatory at his school state yet, he may need to fly in with a face shield, eye protective glasses and a face mask, then take a test over there ASAP and do self-quarantine until a negative result.
Anyone happen to see Cuomo’s presser today? The parents on the facebook page of my daughter’s school in NY are concerned that Cuomo won’t permit any of the colleges in NY to bring students back to campus this fall. (I don’t have time to check out his presser at the moment and thought someone here could fill me in.)
^If Ned Lamont does that in CT, then Wesleyan might as well go dark. Well over half its student body is outside the NE.
Wow! My D’s best friend just left this weekend for NY to quarantine for two weeks before coming to campus (Syracuse). She may be coming home as quickly as she left?!
I hope that’s not the case as a lot of students from restricted states have just arrived in NY to start their 2 week mandatory quarantines. My son’s school in NY just brought all those kids back this weekend.
Infection to symptoms (if symptomatic) tends to range from 3 to 14 days, but usually around 4-5 days. But symptomatic people are most contagious about 2 to 3 days before symptoms start. Asymptomatic people may also be contagious without ever knowing it.
If you have access to quick accurate testing, then you may be able to do a testing-based protocol with a family member returning from a high risk environment like a residential college.
@ucbalumnus wrote:
Interesting how residential colleges are either “high risk” or so stringent that they resemble “prisons”. It’s going to be an interesting fall.
@shuttlebus - I have not been able to find anything online about Cuomo’s updates that relate to college students. Please report back if you find out more details.
So Michigan just came out with an email saying kids will be tested before going to school via Quest. They have to semi isolate for 14 days before going. Internationals start 14 days once they land. Each kid that will be on campus has to do a covid module prior to start of school. It has the schools rules etc.
They want the kids to have a flu shot prior. Which we planned on anyway.
They said 70% of credits will be remote and no major is impacted if you want to stay home. Staying home was the theme. Maybe to cover themselves for lawsuits.
Anyone can get housing deposits etc refunded if before August 14 th.
Their materials once again sent to students, parents, staff etc states their rules very clearly. Can’t imagine someone not understanding them. Plus now anyone on campus has to take an internet learning covid module. They are covering their behind plus educating their community.
I listened to Cuomos rants today. i heard nothing about colleges.
[quote=“socaldad2002, post:12425, topic:2088334”]
I agree with this. Although I myself have not flown since February ;-), and don’t have any plans to for the rest of the year, I have read a lot and watched a lot about plane safety during COVID, and it doesn’t worry me too much. The air replacement/flow is constant (eek, i can’t remember exactly, but I think all the air on the plane is completely refreshed maybe 20 times per hour), and there is no evidence of flight attendants being at very high risk of catching coronavirus. I do think there was one cluster of flight attendants who caught it, but they had all been at an indoor social party together without masks—ie they did not contract it on the job. It seems a lot of people are thinking all kids going through airports will obviously come home infected, and I think that appears to be a very, very overblown worry.
I agree, if the most infectious timeframe for a person lasts 2-4 days at most, and the odds that your own child will come home with the coronavirus at all are quite low, and also coming home with it During their most infectious 2-4 day period is even lower. It seems extremely unlikely that they would get it during transit (airport terminals also only have about 28% of their normal number of passengers right now, so there is tons of space and free air flow in terminals, aside from the great ventilation on the actual planes). Yes, there will be more travelers at Thanksgiving time, but surely will still be a tiny fraction of the normal Thanksgiving numbers—still space to distance in the terminal.
So yes, I would be cautious when my child initially comes home, and would aim for testing to help us alleviate concern, but if they were fairly cautious on campus for the week or two prior to departure, I would probably try to keep some distance, use masks when possible, not snuggle on the couch initially, but the more time that passes, feel more comfortable. From my research, it’s not like there is magic at 14 days. Somewhere I read that 14 days would capture 99%+ of cases, but 10 days gets like 90%, and 7 days get ~85%. So if I thought she was being pretty careful, I’d be ok with an 85% further reduction in risk, and possibly even less. YMMV of course, it’s obviously up to everyone’s own comfort level.
Sorry, I had editing/format issues above. I was referring to Socaldad’s post earlier.
This is a misunderstanding. Covid patients are most infectious in the 48 hours before they show symptoms (or a similar point in their virus load if they never show symptoms), not the first 48 hours after they were exposed to the disease. And that point of showing symptoms could be as late as 14 days, though the mean (according to the CDC) is 6 days.
So, in the average case of a person who gets symptoms, they get exposed on day 0, they start being infectious on day 4, they develop symptoms on day 6, they’re not very infectious by day 8.
I don’t get the point of quarantining your student for 2 days. If they were exposed on the plane home and they’re infected, they’re most likely going to start getting infectious after you release them from that abbreviated quarantine.
Amherst is not doing what many large state universities are doing for room and board; in the hypothetical scenario that they have to force all students off-campus, they will provide pro-rated refunds like they did in spring.
D just got an update on payment for Fall 2020; tuition and room and board for the semester is not due until the first day of classes (August 24 for us). I believe Cornell is doing the same.
What are you basing this advice on?
“Their college should be regularly testing your student while away at college”
Yeah, nope. Didn’t someone already point out that this thread is elite/small metric? Huge publics? Not so much.