@circuitrider all students were tested upon arrival and quarantined until results came back. I believe there were 5 cases. A week later testing was done again for all students, but no quarantine. During the week a lot of non compliance.
Results came back Friday - over 30 positives, so the school locked it down. Canceled all weekend activities and scheduled a mandatory virtual townhall for this afternoon.
What are the odds that some are false positives, especially if the kids tested were asymptomatic? Some NFL players and the governor of Ohio have first-hand experience with these.
I predict hook-up culture will be an early casualty of the Fall 2020 re-openings. At least at some schools. There’s such a thing as incest taboo which will be a real thing among kids spending a lot of time with the same pod or dormitory floor.
SUNY Oneonta is closing for 2 weeks due to a cluster…
Thank you for sharing your daughter’s story. I wish you all the best and look forward to the day that she (and all the other kids here) go on to have the college experience they are hoping for.
Article in The NY Times today. Questions whether a yes/no test provides enough info. Reports that the viral load is more important and that possibly 90% of positives don’t have enough virus to be contagious
Wake Forest just finished first week of classes. DS (freshman) has been on campus two weeks, DD (senior) in off campus housing for the same.
WFU has about 5200 undergraduates.
Covid dashboard shows 16 cases to date, which I assume are primarily from move in testing required by school. Weekly random testing of several hundred students begins tomorrow. WFU Medical School is deeply involved in protocols. Communications from school to parents have been frequent and transparent.
Campus housing is de-densified, with 65/35% single/double. Freshman who requested specific roommates were allowed to pair up, otherwise all were given singles. School has rented 250 off campus apartments for dorm overflow, 190 room hotel for isolation. Access to WFU campus is strictly controlled, no visitors allowed without permits.
There are big white tents all over campus where students can study and eat. Social distancing is pretty strictly enforced, with stories of some student conduct hearings being held for noncompliance. For example, DS cannot have more than one other person in his room, must wear mask when not in room except for when eating.
Classes online, hybrid, and in-person. For example, DD has one class with 10 students, they go two each for 35 minutes in person, remainder online. DS has two hybrid classes, remainder online. Not ideal, but WFU is working hard to create a good educational experience.
All student organizations are required to hold meeting online, Greeks cannot have any activities now. DD doing advising for freshmen and running her other campus org meetings through Zoom.
Students are acutely aware of stucents being sent home at UNC, ECU, and NCST.
So far so good, but I’m sure all are cautiously awaiting this week’s results from random testing.
I posted this in the other campus Covid thread, thought it might be appropriate here as well:
Wake Forest just finished first week of classes. DS (freshman) has been on campus two weeks, DD (senior) in off campus housing for the same.
WFU has about 5200 undergraduates.
Covid dashboard shows 16 cases to date, which I assume are primarily from move in testing required by school. Weekly random testing of several hundred students begins tomorrow. WFU Medical School is deeply involved in protocols. Communications from school to parents have been frequent and transparent.
Campus housing is de-densified, with 65/35% single/double. Freshman who requested specific roommates were allowed to pair up, otherwise all were given singles. School has rented 250 off campus apartments for dorm overflow, 190 room hotel for isolation. Access to WFU campus is strictly controlled, no visitors allowed without permits.
There are big white tents all over campus where students can study and eat. Social distancing is pretty strictly enforced, with stories of some student conduct hearings being held for noncompliance. For example, DS cannot have more than one other person in his room, must wear mask when not in room except for when eating.
Classes online, hybrid, and in-person. For example, DD has one class with 10 students, they go two each for 35 minutes in person, remainder online. DS has two hybrid classes, remainder online. Not ideal, but WFU is working hard to create a good educational experience.
All student organizations are required to hold meeting online, Greeks cannot have any activities now. DD doing advising for freshmen and running her other campus org meetings through Zoom.
Students are acutely aware of stucents being sent home at UNC, ECU, and NCST.
So far so good, but I’m sure all are cautiously awaiting this week’s results from random testing.
Well, our small LAC (1400 students) is 2 weeks into the semester. Almost everyone brought back, dorms not de-densified (except, perhaps, some public areas off limits). Tested everyone upon arrival and then random surveillance testing. Small-town, rural NE US setting. Just a few positive tests on arrival, students complying well with masking on campus. Some reports of students attending off-campus parties at other, larger nearby institutions with looser rules. The one problem I have personally observed on a number of occasions has been students eating, unmasked, in groups of 5 or 6 at picnic tables under canopies outside the dining hall. The tables are marked with dots to allow only 4 students per table with the seats at each corner. It is explicitly against the college’s rule, as you must maintain social distancing while eating, unmasked. When I approached one table of six unmasked students sitting shoulder-to-shoulder at one of these picnic tables, and pointed to the dots and asked – “Aren’t these for social distancing?” one student responded: “Social distancing? Yeah, right… It’s not working so well, is it?” I did NOT find this encouraging. My small college might yet make it through without an outbreak on campus, but you can see how a combination of off-campus interactions with flouting of the social distancing rules in some contexts on-campus could lead to an early end to the in-person semester – which terrible financial consequences to my only modestly-endowed college.
I just think about S19’s normal freshman day and he cannot do almost 100 percent of it now. He’s agreed that he does not want to go back if school will look just like this fall. It will depend on how much of that 100 percent he can get back. Life on campus so far looks nothing like last year.
At my D’s school they had maybe 9 test positive at arrival testing with rapid tests and we’ve heard at least 2 were false positives, both freshman. Both parents talked about their experiences on the parent board. One was a local family and was confused because they’d been so careful. Took their daughter home and isolated her. Worked with the school to get 2 follow up PCR tests days apart and both were negative so she was able to return to campus to join the last half of orientation week. The second family traveled from several states away. They were also shocked and took the whole family immediately to another testing site where all, including their student, tested negative. Their daughter also received the follow-up PCR testing from the school and received multiple negative results but was stressed and upset by the whole experience and decided to go home with her family and do her semester remote.
While it’s true that up to 90% of people who test positive aren’t infectious, that’s going to include about 0% of people who tested negative a week before. Maybe a little more, depending on how many false positives the test shows. But if you tested negative last week and positive this week, either you’re infectious or one of your tests was false.
The schedule is:
Day 0: exposed
Day N (where N is 2 to 14): first show positive. Infectious
Day N+1 or N+2: show symptoms, if you’re symptomatic
Day N+7: No longer infectious
Many days later: no longer show positive
There’s a short time, a period of hours, where a person will test positive and not be infectious yet. There’s a long, long time, one or two weeks or more, where a person will test positive and is no longer infectious.
@homerdog But what if 2021 is the same, is he going to stay out of school indefinitely until things return to normal? What about resiliency and adaptability? I would think employers would not look favorable on such long LOAs.
Yeah, I always saw the LAC with a bucolic college campus as sort of a double-edged sword. You would think that with lots of room to spread out that kids would find a way to socially distance without a lot of hand-holding from the administration. If I were a university attorney I would be advising against setting up all of these seating amenities out of doors; they’re almost tantamount to attractive nuisances. A patch of grass should suffice.
Life in 2020 looks nothing like life before for many people. If my student was open to a gap year, I wouldn’t have discouraged it. But like many, she felt the positives of continuing were better than the negatives. It will be different for everyone - particularly if they are lucky enough to have good opportunities during the gap year.
She’s still considering whether a gap semester will make sense if her school does end up being fully remote next semester for freshman. A lot of that will be impacted on how the classes she currently has remote are conducted.
If 2020 has taught my daughter anything, it is that expectations of normalcy are futile. Pick the best of worst and make it work.
So on Ann Arbor Campus Thursday and Today. 99.9% wearing masks. Kids sitting outside in a circle eating lunch. The downtown area on State street with stores /shops had large signs like if your going to an art fair saying you must have a mask on before entering the stores. Every store etc has a No mask,No service sign on the door. Even half a mile to a mile away from Central campus kids were walking in groups with masks on. Kerry Town which has a farmers market on the weekend everyone was wearing masks. I just drove by it5. Same for North Campus… Seems like the memo got out but “maybe” they have a shot. Large tents with tables and chairs were outside also. Kids looked happy. My son had meetings all day for various things on campus. Actually, everything looked normal except people wearing masks.
Wayne State had two student fatalities in the Spring. It’s not zero.
Western Michigan had a student fatality in the spring too.
Interesting segment yesterday on the CBS Morning News regarding how Colgate is navigating the on-campus experience: https://www.cbsnews.com/video/two-week-quarantine-scheduled-outdoor-time-among-colgate-university-coronavirus-precautions/
So did RPI, but it was due to H1n1, not covid