My S received his negative test results back in 2 business days and is now settled into his first year dorm. Davidson had staggered move in times for freshmen (4 move in slots split between Thurs and today). Most freshmen are in doubles. It is pretty darn important this year that roommates get along. For now, my kid is asked to social distance and mask up with everyone but his roommate. Davidson will be testing all students weekly so hopefully if all goes well in a few weeks restrictions might be loosened somewhat. About half his classes will be online and the other half hybrid with smaller sections meeting in person.
One of the RAs on his floor said that almost 350 upperclassmen decided not to be on campus (combination of those taking leave, taking class remotely or living off campus). My S says Davidson has fewer kids on campus than they had planned for–his guess is 1500-1600 on campus this fall.
The Davidson students we met all seemed genuinely thrilled to be back even with the restrictions (masks on everywhere but your room or while eating, social distancing everywhere and absolutely no parties). The atmosphere on campus was almost festive–dueling speakers were blasting music in the dorm hallway as we moved in. Mask compliance was 100% on campus and near 100% in the Town of Davidson. Davidson has set up a good deal of outdoor seating w/umbrellas outside their Commons dining hall and chalkboards and chairs have been placed in various outside locations around campus. The kids will likely be spending a lot of time outdoors! We left feeling cautiously optimistic that Davidson will make this work.
The Yale test sounds good, but doesn’t sound like a game-changer.
This is not a point-of-service test. It has to be done in a high-complexity lab. This is not Michael Mina’s lick a piece of paper, wait five minutes, see if an indicator bar appears kind of test.
That’s my understanding as well. Being able to use a wide variety of reagents is the biggest difference between the Yale test and any previously approved saliva test. The newly approved test can be analyzed at virtually any medical lab, with results available in as little as 3 hours. The lack of available reagents for many existing tests has been one of the biggest causes of testing bottlenecks to date.
Super cool that the NBA/Yale test is open source. Hopefully this will be a game changer.
As far as the logic of colleges/universities providing tests for the public rather than students, remember that many schools are fighting for their financial lives and continued existence. And, we have no national plan or mandate for coordinating testing resources.
I’m sure that it would make an enormous difference. However, I’m not seeing close to 80% compliance, in a state where mask-wearing is mandated, in a city where the mayor is incredibly proactive about keeping the number of cases as low as possible, and very communicative about that, where most people are fairly well-educated and mostly “liberal” (whatever that happens to mean at the moment), and there’s even discussion of a $250 fine for non-compliance because people aren’t responding to gentle reason and persuasion. And most of the Stevens students haven’t even arrived yet (but they’re a REALLY smart bunch, so maybe they’ll be more likely to understand the necessity!).
Web sites on the topic tend to say something different, in that most cases of myocardial inflammation are due to viral infection (of a wide range of viruses), but that does not say that most viral infections result in myocardial inflammation.
@PrdMomto1 - ND is initially testing only those that are symptomatic or were in close proximity to a person that tested positive (all the party people). They have said they plan to start randomly testing people in the near future.
I found the reference I had read that says even having the flu can cause the heart problem in a study from John Hopkins. “Myocarditis: inflammation of the heart. The coronavirus may infect and damage the heart’s muscle tissue directly, as is possible with other viral infections, including some strains of the flu. The heart may also become damaged and inflamed indirectly by the body’s own immune system response.”
Most athletes are aware of this and know to be careful after a viral infection because of it. Obviously, something like coronavirus that could make it more frequently occur now is something to be concerned about. But it isn’t really a new health issue, just more potential for it to occur more frequently now.
Another article stated “American athletes have about a two to five percent chance of death related to myocarditis. Budhrani noted that the condition has been found in athletes in the past who have died suddenly while playing.”
The issue is you have to compare to how many die from other causes. I was really surprised at how many die from various other more commonly known illnesses. But that’s not the topic du jour. And of course, even one death is too many, esp if it is you. But its a risk/benefit analysis, as in all things.
There is uber hyper focus on this illness (and not saying there shouldn’t be), but there may be a lack of overall perspective or even context, as various news media shouting out articles Every new discovery or finding is worthy of a news report, in the past, studies were much more measured before released. Lots of smart people, thankfully, working on trying to figure this out, but in the meantime, information coming along at warp speed.
I just returned from dropping off my freshmen at his school, freshmen were dropped of wed and Thursday for move in and orientation, surprised there was no temp checks but happy he made it there, it was a 11 hour car ride each way but hopefully he will make the full semester, as of now he has only 1 out of 6 classes online.
@waverlywizzard Honestly, I think they just weren’t worried about Amherst since it is so much smaller than UMass. Also, many people were upset about UMass bringing their students back because many students would live in off-campus housing where their behavior couldn’t really be controlled, which doesn’t really make sense because most of those students would be back either way. I just read an article the other day saying that virtually all the UMass students are returning to town because they’ve already signed leases (meaning they still have to pay for the off-campus apartments), and while local landlords do believe it would be the best thing for the town for many students as possible to stay home, most of them are not letting students out of leases because that would be a huge loss of income (and I don’t blame them).
Also, they didn’t escape it entirely; there was a local petition to all the colleges in the Five College Consortium asking colleges to keep students home for fall. I understood them being upset with Mount Holyoke and Smith (even though I thought they should still bring students back), because those are the only colleges in relatively small areas (referring to Northampton for Smith and South Hadley for Mount Holyoke); but I thought petitioning UMass was a pointless cause because all the off-campus students (which the locals were most worried about) would be back anyway, I thought petitioning Amherst was excessive considering that students can’t leave campus, and I thought petitioning Hampshire was excessive since that college is so small that they don’t even hold a candle to the number of off-campus UMass students.
@TennisParent Actually, the only NESCAC that has significantly reduced tuition, room and board for students is Williams, reducing all tuition and fees by 15%. All NESCACs besides Amherst and Williams only rolled back planned tuition increases, as far as I am aware. Amherst actually continued with planned tuition increases, so juniors and the half of seniors who weren’t invited back will have to pay tuition increases for online education.
Very blessed out here in Bay Area, California. Son took test yesterday around 17:25 (5:25 pm). Test results back today at 19:17 (7:17 pm). 26 hours.
Thankfully negative.
No. I’m responding to the statement about “the fastest turnaround time right now for any state.” Next time choose your words more carefully, and say “most” or “a high percentage.” You are now saying “the vast majority.” Perhaps you should have started with that, and others would not have responded. My mistake for actually going based on the meaning of the words “fastest” and “any state.”
If you read my post, I acknowledged there were reasons my D’s turnaround was fast. I wasn’t arguing that. I also wasn’t arguing your point about a general trend. I was very specific in my rebuttal.