This story from a student at the University of Iowa who was covid positive really concerns me. The student clearly exposed way too many people and the fact that the school didn’t immediately isolate her roommate makes me wonder how many cases that school will see.
^^I’m confused, did she leave while she is still considered infectious and proceeded to take a bus? She was going to do a lyft or zip or something (potentially infecting the driver?) Because she couldn’t tolerate the conditions of a rusty sink and cold meat and rice and whatever conditions the university had set up for her (not saying that is right either). Just trying to understand the thinking process here.
“she wasn’t about to give UI another night”. Hmm. wonder if anyone got infected from her on her journey.
What a mess. I really pray she is a false positive.
Seems like it should not be surprising if the quarantine dorm is the least desirable dorm… but was the food different from regular dining hall food packed to go?
Yes, it appears she did take a bus (and stay at hotel) exposing others. The school messed up but so did the student. She should have been in isolation pending her test result. The roommate should have also been moved to isolation as soon as the positive result came back. I am wondering how the contact tracing went with those kids they were both hanging out with.
This is a sick, scared 18-year-old, who appeared to have an anxiety attack. She should not have gotten on a bus but we don’t always make the best choices when we are frightened and ill. She needed guidance, instruction, and the school should have been ready to go from day one.
^^Yes, sounds like her first time away from home. What a mess this will be. I am sure the state quarantine rules are that you are supposed to quarantine yourself, but of course we don’t live in a society where you are basically locked into your apt or hauled off to a government quarantine center.
I hope the schools learn from this that they better have someone in communication with the student (in quarantine) frequently to provide support.
Parents/Guardians can learn too – need to assess your child’s maturity to handle this type of situation. Sounds like she couldn’t go home either.
Maybe only sophs/juniors/seniors should have been the only ones allowed back on campus in retrospect.
I think that ND sent the message ahead of time that they would not punish those who had the parties so the kids would cooperate with the contact tracers. Seems like it worked, they got tremendous cooperation with the first clusters.
They might have changed that message with the shut down.
My impression is that on top of the two week shut down they are trying to scare/shame the kids into behaving. There was an interesting post on reddit about the attitude on campus shifting to over policing. It is one thing to turn people in when you think there will be no consequences, and another when it puts college careers at risk. It probably impedes the help you’ll get with contact tracing too. There are many interesting dynamics at play.
It is possible that the kids thought they were in a safe bubble because everyone had recently nested negative, and didn’t think having some parties would be a risk. Now that they know how easy it is to super spread, maybe they really will behave. .
Why did these nincompoops at Iowa think nobody would get covid on the first day? That infuriates me. The 18-year-old student shouldn’t have left and gotten a bus, to be sure, but she was alone and sick and afraid and in a dirty room. What is the administrators’ excuse? Did they think the virus was going to take the day off?
I pointed out that students getting ready to go off to school they were likely to do things that might expose them, going away parties, for example, and therefore even if they’d tested negative before arrival they could turn positive any day. This was obvious and predictable. If I knew it, why didn’t they? They were supposed to be planning for this all summer. That was their job. And yet they weren’t ready for the very first student that turned up positive.
Notre Dame only had 23 cases Friday, but they only did half as many tests as they did the day before, and they still had 9% positivity. Positivity too high, number of tests too low. With that low number of tests, they’re not being serious.
I also wonder why Iowa didn’t isolate this kid right away. She showed up with classic covid symptoms, headache and fever. Why did they wait until she got a positive test? They are fools, and they made sure she had the best chance to infect other people, certainly her roommate.
It seems the early expectations on CC that roommates would be able to help by bringing food, medicine, other things needed to those in isolation/quarantine will not work. No one but other sick people are allowed in the isolation dorm.
@alh I don’t think many landlords would let kids out of their leases. Apparently (according to an article in a local Amherst newspaper) many UMass students tried to get let out of their leases after they went all remote, and while local landlords thought it would be optimal for them to stay home, most of them held the students to it, and I don’t blame them, because they need the income.
^^Well, local landlords can’t have their cake and eat it too. If they think “outsiders” should not come into their town, then a) they shouldn’t lease to any outsiders and b) they better let them out of their lease.
I get that the landlords could be on the opposite side of the aisle as the rest of the town.
That’s not the point. People were saying that the students would have come to Chapel Hill anyway, even if UNC had been all remote, because they wanted to live alone. Alh refutes that, pointing out that now that students are discovering the school will be online they’re trying to break their leases. We can thus see that they only came to Chapel Hill because they believed UNC would be able to carry out their doomed plan; they wouldn’t have come otherwise.
It’s nothing to do with whether the landlords would let them out of their leases. They wouldn’t have had those leases in the first place if UNC hadn’t tried this cockamamie plan of having students come back, and then not testing them enough.
Many of these state schools are doing a good job handling a difficult task. UNC’s COVID DashBoard is pretty comprehensive:
https://carolinatogether.unc.edu/dashboard/
The issue is that for larger schools with a high percentage of students living off campus 20 to 50% in some cases, it is going to be hard to monitor and control student to student spread. This is why many of the Ivies have changed course. So far, the NESCAC schools and other well endowed LACs have the best shot of making this work since almost all students are guaranteed on campus housing all 4 years and they have enough single room capacity to house all returning students. Williams is even providing free fully stocked microfridges to all students and express food delivery.
Purdue -
There are hundred and hundreds of pages of covid policies but here are some highlights:
- all students tested prior to arriving on campus
- international students required to quarantine
- 4000 random tests to be conducted weekly
- robust contact tracing
- covid dashboard active and updated including numbers for staff
- students suspended for violating social distancing, mask wearing, and large gatherings (violation of the protect Purdue code is akin to theft and academic dishonesty and can result in expulsion). Being enforced on and off campus
- school working with the mayor and health department to reduce density and restrict access to bars and clubs.
- flu shot required
- covid health department set up and staffed 24/7 with nurse case managers independent of the campus health center
In buildings-
- State of the art ventilation systems installed
- one way corridors
- auto purell dispensers at all doors and elevators
- all seats 6 feet apart
- lounges closed
- plexiglass barriers up
- dining take out only. Large tents all over campus
- only 2 people allowed in elevators at a time
Why does UMass have a covid-19 ticker tape dashboard for testing?
https://www.umass.edu/coronavirus/dashboard
Seems unnecessary if the campus is closed and classes are remote. Shouldn’t the state and town reporting be sufficient?
Select students, mostly seniors with projects and labs, are on campus at UMass. They are living in North apartments and honors housing.
D20 leaves tomorrow. Her LAC has instituted a mandatory universal quarantine - 2 weeks in their room for everyone (with scheduled showers and an hour of yard time twice a day, delivered meal service, and online classes). The president has also left his residence and moved into a dorm to illustrate he isn’t asking anything he won’t do and leading by example. Every student did a mail-in Covid test and can return to campus only if they were negative. Tests will be administered again on move-in and 2 weeks later plus random sampling throughout the semester and monitoring of waste water for traces of the virus. They have a tiered return to normalcy based on any infections and adherence to restrictions. They have also been crystal clear about students being sent home for violating social distancing and mask rules, including those living off campus. It is a fairly small school in a very small town where most of the faculty live so they may be able to keep an eye on what is going on.
@TennisParent wrote:
Yes. A surprisingly large number of Yale seniors live off-campus. Incidentally, a residential dean said it out loud in a letter to arriving students at Silliman:
“You should emotionally prepare for the fact that your residential college life will look more like a hospital unit than a residential college.” https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/yale-professor-warned-students-of-widespread-infections-e2-80-94-and-possibly-deaths/ar-BB18cltx
Did Notre Dame test 100% of students upon arrival?