Unfortunately, this is likely going to be an issue for small remote schools. No infrastructure to handle the testing in house, and no lab or hospital down the street to contract with = longer test turnaround time.
My kid’s LAC had an increase in cases, obviously due to the frats and sororities despite FB parents whining about them being blamed, and the school is basically on a lockdown - can only hang with your roommate, all activities cancelled etc. One parent of a freshman said 5 kids moved out from her D’s floor yesterday alone - they weren’t sick, just very unhappy.
Yet still parents on FB don’t understand why anyone has to quarantine- why can’t they just go about life with masks?
The library had to close a few days already because of “chronic” breaches of mask wearing rules. The library staff was very concerned and rightly so.
I know in some places the schools really didn’t seem to prepare. Shame on them. But to have the wheels start to fall off at a LAC that has really worked hard and moved forward with a thoughtful plan - it’s disheartening. It’s a lack of respect and community on the part of these students. Obviously not all, but enough.
I agree that it depends on many individual factors and variables. I do think it will get harder for kids as time goes on if rules like six feet of distance at all times, no friends allowed in each other’s rooms/dorms, and masks outside continue. If no pods are allowed, that means no human touch for three months—not even a hug when you’re upset. Forget about dating. If it has to be that way to fight the virus, I understand, but I would be surprised if there are many college students who can deal with it for long.
I hope that we continue to develop more rapid, inexpensive testing, and that frequent testing proves effective in keeping the virus suppressed. Then maybe colleges can relax the restrictions for spring. I also hope that sports and activities which lend themselves to physical distance (running, lawn games, outdoor adventures, etc.) could be resumed.
There’s a hospital. The Director of Health straight up lied to us. We raised a ruckus and he told DH he’d get S19 re-tested that.day. But when we talked to S after he talked to the Director, our son said the Director never said anything about getting him re-tested. He told our son to just sit tight and wait.
Am I the only one who thinks that young adults today are way more ambivalent about the human touch thing than boomers and Gen Xers were at the same age?
Also, our son was the 7th person to test. Everyone else he knows tested after him and have known for days their results.
Interested what you are seeing that indicates this? FWIW it seems the hookup culture in today’s college/young adult age group is really active. And that included this summer, according to D19. So I’m with some of the posters above who don’t think it’s likely that many college students are going to be able to physically distance for months on end.
How incredibly frustrating @ChaosParent23 I hope your son gets some resolution quickly, that’s just ridiculous.
I think their rationale is that they don’t work. If my daughter picks five friends and two of those have significant others and those others have pods and so on… there are only 1200 kids in the school, it wouldn’t take much for pods to be pointless. Also, those pod kids would have sports practice or choir practice and live in different dorms… it is a mess to think about, really.
I think it absolutely depends on the kid. My daughter is one who needs a pod. She doesn’t need big parties, even remote classes aren’t a big deal if she can have 3-4 kids she can hang out with. So far her college is allowing groups under 10 to play soccer/spike ball on the quad. To study together in the common rooms etc. The mostly eat outside as well in a small group, and that’s fine with her. These colleges that aren’t allowing a pod to develop are definitely making it hard for kids imo.
i know of a large college where a whole floor of a dorm all have it now (and all in Q.). So when these kids come out after testing negative, I would think for some X time they are “immune” and can no longer pass it to others. i think the same will hold true for some of these greek houses that are on Q right now. These will be great experiments in Herd immunity. YES I know that after a few months you may get it again, but then why would a vaccine work. Have we heard of a single college kid in the hospital yet? I know that that would be all over the news.
I agree that colleges need to contain and not let it spread like it has at UA, so that kids can have some in person classes, but as we also saw in the summer, you cant expect the young crowd to indefinitely socially distance. My more social D has seen friends and done bubbles . She stays away from friends that are looser about their circles. Yet yesterday in the rain, I got a text, “what do you do that is Covid safe when raining other than being stuck in my apartment”. As the weather turns, I think this will be an issue. Going back to the beginning, if you are on a dorm floor in Oct where everyone got it in late Aug, wont that open up for some indoor socialization?
Bottom line, is that i wish there was some guidelines on after you have had it, how long can one socialize and not be spreading the virus.
I think it would be a very dangerous thing to allow kids who’ve already had C be free from the distancing rules. Other kids would see these groups and some would stupidly intentionally get C so they can be free from these restrictions too.
To a virus LACs are no different than other colleges and universities.
both.
@milgymfam Ah, gotcha. For some reason, I thought Haverford was one of the schools that was all online and they were saying no pods outside of campus. I guess no pods on campus makes sense but I do think students need some way of connecting, so I hope they are providing ways for that to happen.
While positive cases often must be reported for public health, the medical status of individuals are private. So we may or may not hear about it, depending on the will of the student.
@Leigh22 - The college’s website indicates that the testing is part of its “baseline” testing process. Doesn’t the lockdown period incorporate the initial testing period?
@Leigh22 Students are also the same everywhere. There will always be enough irresponsible students to act as a conduit for the virus to spread. Schools have demonstrably shown that pre-arrival testing isn’t necessarily the answer. Other well thought out plans will be circumvented as time goes on. I’m glad testing capacity hasn’t become an issue for most schools, but I expect the virus to spread anyway.
@homerdog From what I’ve seen so far at my kid’s LAC, campus life is sub-optimal but not what I would call “awful.” They are doing their best to be creative and find fun but safer things to do, such as frisbee golf.
The town’s downtown is immediately adjacent to campus, and the students are free and in fact encouraged to patronize the downtown businesses. The downtown merchants are requiring masks and social distancing, and I think the college figures it’s better to have students going there in their spare time than socializing indoors in groups in dorms, which is pretty much forbidden. Most of the stores had signs out during the first week saying: “We’re Hope Ready” which is the college’s slogan for being Covid-ready.
My kid has walked to the farmer’s market, bike store (tire repair), mini-mart, and gotten takeout food from several restaurants. Plus taken the school shuttle to the grocery store. The shuttle used to be a van but now has been replaced by a bigger bus so that the kids can sit farther apart. There was a student organized BLM protest on Saturday that marched through campus and downtown (with masks). My kid also hates the dining hall food and has cooked in the dorm kitchen several times. My kid is also not social, and happy to hang out with a suite-mate doing low key things. So far the weather has been good but that won’t last forever.
The school posts its weekly numbers on Monday so I’m anxiously awaiting the next report. My student was randomly tested on Thursday and was negative, but of course I want to see the campus wide report.
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So on a personal note- I brought my student home from ECU. The school switched to online and students were to move out of dorms. Certain students could stay including hardship, athletes, international, those in Living Learning Communities, and they were very generous with students requesting exemptions to stay. My DD had waivered in staying with her LLC but we ultimately decided to bring her home since cases are so widespread and this week there were concerns about quarantine spaces running out and reports that some positive students were told to stay in their dorm and get their own food.
The culpability falls not just on the students or school but on the UNC Board of Governors who really tied the school’s hands. Plenty of blame to go around IMO. None of that is important to my DD as she struggles to unpack and focus on her midterms (ECU switched to block scheduling). She was able to be tested right before move out at student health services and is negative. However, our whole family will quarantine for seven days before being retested. We will do our part to limit the spread.
Just a reminder that there are real families behind these statistics.