Has ND issued anything about plans to test the entire population? I think they have more of an outbreak on their hands than they seem willing to acknowledge, and students living in double rooms sharing hall baths are just exposing others, with or w/o remote instruction. Do you think they cannot obtain access to 12K tests twice/week or think that this will resolve on its own?
But my point is that the people who live in our 25.000 person town have in a way made a loose bubble. Yes, people have travelled but mostly driven to houses in neighboring states. Kids had tight bubbles that loosened over time. Adults too. Most adults working from home except for those in the medical field. Everyone very good about wearing masks where mandated like stores. School is all remote for now but K-8 is going hybrid after Labor Day.
If a college is starting with such low numbers and then is testing three times a week, I see zero reason why some things can’t relax on some campuses, maybe not urban ones but suburban and rural maybe.
Wow…I want to live by you! My younger daughter came home for 3 days and wore a mask inside the whole time except when she ate…6+ feet away. And she has the antibodies (whatever that means these days).
My friend’s son was dropped off at one of our state schools last week…an hour away. He had to quarantine because he is from “out of town.”
Wearing a mask and keeping a safe distance has become as normal here as brushing your teeth.
@twogirls are you in NYC? I don’t know where things are still so hard like that. S19 has a lot of friends in the Boston suburbs and they aren’t locked down and wearing masks all of the time. They say their lives aren’t much different than ours. More things still closed down like local pools but they are seeing friends and not wearing masks every waking hour. S19 has been in Maine for a week or so and it seems similar to here. People at the store in masks but most are not masked walking around town. His friends who have been there all summer have a loose bubble in their house and with their girlfriends and their girlfriends’ families. My friend in San Diego and her family are living the same life we are as well.
I honestly think that, when most kids head back to college, they are going to have to live a life very different than they were for the last few months. I don’t think a vast majority of this country is living masked up and six feet apart.
Kids are currently in NYC…we are about an hour out. I didn’t even ask her to wear a mask inside…she decided it was something she had to do. She does it with her “bubble” friends too, except when eating.
We are going about our normal business…no lock down, but masks and social distancing. People are just beginning to eat indoors…carefully, and very distanced (not me yet). My kids are careful. They don’t go to any large gatherings etc. NYC is still adhering to stricter guidelines than the rest of the state.
Masks and distancing have become the norm here.
In the SF Bay Area we’re still locked down, mostly, and wearing masks when we venture out. Indoor dining is still closed. Hair salons still closed, though many are cheating apparently.
(OK, right now we can’t venture out of the house anyway because we can’t breathe if we do. I hope the smoke will clear in a week or so.)
@CT1417 - I am not sure how ND plans to continue the surveillance testing. I am pretty sure it is not a 100% test of the school in one week.
I actually agree with @“Cardinal Fang” on this point, a test on any given day just means you are negative for that day. If your exposure was in the past few days or if you go off campus to a store, you may be exposed and not testing positive, yet. The hope, I am sure, is that the two week pause will provide a chance to conduct broader testing to see how large an asymptomatic population there is. While in this pause, all the students are , masking up, social distancing and minimizing contact with others.
I refer back to an earlier discussion, the positive test rate in my county, Stanislaus County in CA, is now at 12.2%. The positive test rate at ND is 13.9% for the month of August with a good trend in the last 3 days of 8% or less each day. I do not feel my son’s risk for COVID has increased by going to school.
@homerdog Illinois is having a surge in cases. Positivity rates in Illinois have been increasing for the last month. Hospitalizations have been increasing for the last week or so. We are headed in the wrong direction in Illinois.
https://www.dph.illinois.gov/regionmetrics?regionID=10
https://www.covidexitstrategy.org
Our school has already decided we will be remote until October. I don’t foresee in person classes starting anytime this fall.
Zoom CANVAS and some other educational platforms experiencing an outage.
I hope its just the normal growing pains and site usage and not hacking. 
My zoom worked this morning via my workplace.
@usma87 – Oh, I think that students’ risk of contracting COVID increase significantly while living on campus. Your student can elect to avoid contact while living at home, but that is not possible while sharing a room with someone who may not share his safe COVID practices and then sharing a hall bath with others who also may not behave as your child might.
@twogirls got it. Certainly, the experience that New Yorkers had is completely different than almost everyone else. And I don’t eat inside either. I just don’t think it’s worth the risk. Eat outside at restaurants but only if the table
I don’t see a “surge”. We have been hovering around 5%. And we don’t have increased hospitalizations in our zone either. Hospitalization rate completely flat for the last week. Two cases in our town which is actually down from last week too. Like I said, K-8 planning to go to school in hybrid model soon. Our high school district went back to the drawing board after last minute Covid changes from Illinois DPH but gossip is that we might be able to get back to hybrid too.
Sorry about that @“Cardinal Fang” Its sucks to be going through a pandemic and horrible fires. Hope things get better over there.
Yes, but your original point was the hope that, in the next 75-plus days remaining in the college/university semester, people will be allowed to let down their guards, if the infection rates remain at a certain low level. New Yorkers would point out that the virus is circulating at a very low level (currently at 1%), precisely because they haven’t “let their foot off the brakes”.
Not sure what to tell you. I can already see that the spring semester is going to be a repeat of the fall, especially for the handful of colleges that make it to Thanksgiving without closing. For a family as aerobics-oriented as yours, it will be very disappointing. You may want to consider transferring.
And that’s why schools that are testing three times a week are doing just that.
Aerobics-oriented? Transferring? I don’t understand. One is allowed to run outside without a mask. And transferring why? I fully expect Bowdoin’s plan to work since it has one of the most conservative plans out there. They talk about a “flower that will bloom” if testing keeps the virus at bay. That’s the analogy they use. What it means in their case is that classes remain remote but that buildings can open more, dining can open more, kids can socialize more and of course in masks. I never said that the students will even take their masks off but just that there will be more opportunities to get back to more activities on campus.
Also, just throwing this out there, is below 1% the goal even if life has to be so controlled? Isn’t there supposed to be a balance between stopping a spike and the economics of it all? I don’t know who is making up the acceptable positivity rate. Plus, the positivity rate is tied to how much testing is going on. In Illinois, I don’t think many people are testing who (1) aren’t showing symptoms or (2) are not a contact of someone who has been diagnosed. Holding steady around 5% of that demographic doesn’t seem that bad. On a college campus where everyone is tested three times a week and, if they don’t have cases for a month, why would they continue to be so locked down? Where would the virus be coming from? Again, I didn’t say throw all caution to the wind. I said sports outside without masks (in Illinois - all summer - lacrosse, baseball, soccer and more and I don’t know any cases from that in our town). I also mentioned dining but I meant dining indoors with the identified cohort and away from others. Masks on the way to the table and off only to eat. Classes in person with masks but maybe don’t have to be six feet (three feet is being used in other countries and I believe in some states too).
The town of Lafayette is now enforcing the same rules as Purdue University. They are handing out fines for not wearing masks. I think the partnership between town and university is essential to make this work. https://www.purdueexponent.org/campus/article_799bdf26-e5b3-11ea-aa60-23c81ebedf6b.html?fbclid=IwAR22rfItuBf6XbGSKGC0M7a1j_5bielsNYvCR4_-Vn-juN97-88fHZ3iF2c
Minnesota just voted to delay opening “at least 2 weeks” 6 days before my son was to move in. From the sound of the meeting I don’t think they’ll open at all this year.
Forget it. I’m not trying to compete NYC against Illinois. My point is that mask-wearing seems to be having the desired effect of lowering the infection rate across the board, even in places that were experiencing surges just a few weeks ago.
A month ago, you were glad to skip fall semester at Bowdoin because you thought conditions there were too draconian for your family’s taste. I just don’t think it will be much different in the spring. There won’t be a widely-available vaccine; there won’t be anything like herd immunity. If a college is doing well in a month’s time, why in the world would they change their routine with six weeks left in the semester?
@circuitrider isn’t the point of lowering the rate of infection so that we can open up more? It is counterintuitive to me that, in places where the virus is very very low right now, people are still pretty hunkered down and k-12 isn’t happening. I guess that’s the difference. To me, it looks like they’ve done well and it’s time to start adding back things that “can be done”. To those living in those places, they think they did the work and have to continue living like that in order for the virus to stay away. What is the answer then for the NYCs and the NorCals? Never getting back to normal no matter what? I thought what we’ve been waiting for (short of a vaccine) is super available, rapid testing. If we have that, then that should free people up a bit. If it’s on a small campus and no one is coming and going? I feel like that school could bit by bit take away some of the restrictions.
@homerdog . The rate is 4.2% but was 3.8% last week. L:axing what we are doing is not what you want to do heading into the fall season. Around me in Chicago I see kids your kids age going out and doing stuff but if in groups they have masks on. Even though your town is safe now it might not be in 2 weeks. People let their guard down then their the new hot spot.