School in the 2020-2021 Academic Year & Coronavirus (Part 1)

Parents Forum
16562

@cinnamon1212 I found this on the bottom of the WL dashboard. Sounds like the students have not been behaving:

“The environment level changed from yellow-middle to yellow-high on 9/14 based on the following factors:

-A significant increase in positive COVID-19 cases, with six new cases identified within the past week. Three of these cases were identified on 9/14 and do not appear to be part of the previously identified cluster.
-Continued lack of compliance with social distancing, face coverings, and expectations for social gatherings.
-Increased pressure on the university’s Isolation/Quarantine (I/Q) capacity, contact tracing capacity, and dining services capacity“

Edited to add…my son has a few friends across the street at VMI. His friends said they have a lot of cases there too.

16563

Regarding W&L, 24 is a lot of cases to have at once. If Bowdoin were to have 10 or more at once, the place practically shuts down. Kids would be back to having no access to any campus buildings except their own dorms and dining would be only pick up. Everything closes - gym, library, all academic buildings. No socializing in rooms or common rooms at all. Can’t leave campus.

I don’t think W&L is testing enough. And wonder how many kids need to be positive before they make some changes. Not surprised considering the political leanings of W&L.

16564

Apparently @homerdog they are doing a lot more testing than is reflected in the dashboard (according to the other thread they did something like 2,900 tests when the students arrived and have been doing wastewater and surveillance testing. I do not have a student there currently so do not have inside information. I would hate for a school to unfairly get a bad reputation. From what people posted on the other thread, and PMs I’ve gotten, it sounds to me like the administration is handling the situation reasonably.

16565

One of my alma maters doing wastewater testing and now quarantined a dorm. Looks to be working.

https://patch.com/new-jersey/newarknj/nj-college-finds-coronavirus-sewage-quarantines-entire-dorm?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_content=newjersey&utm_campaign=blasts&fbclid=IwAR0nJLQ_gx_ekd_0qWEf6M9RJBj-9Cy0kypY3sWMYz7Hk3Ep0ossHnrMTn4

16566

I don’t know. Seems to me like wastewater and random testing leaves a lot of room for cases to go undetected. I get that all schools can’t test everyone twice a week and also that colleges have to have different acceptable limits of infection. Some of the small LACs are going for zero cases. Some big universities think keeping the cases under a certain positive percentage is good enough. I think families just need to decide on their own what they are comfortable with when they send their kids away. I expect cases but want to see a school testing a lot and finding the asymptomatics and then getting their contacts in quarantine too. Hopefully W&L has found all of the positives.

16567

Duke bumped up the testing last week from approximately 7k a week to 12k. I’m sure part of it was the decision to test some athletes including football players every day. Cases still low 9/12,313.

16568

It’s an interesting idea, but if none of the dorm residents have tested positive you find yourself in the unenviable situation of having to calibrate the wastewater results with the assumed source and make sure there isn’t an outbreak somewhere else (if there was actually one at all). Sourcing and contact tracing on steroids.

16569

wastewater testing the dorms is good way to help determine where more than random testing needs to be done on the medium sized schools. RIT has been doing this and when a dorm has virus in the wastewater all students in that dorm get tested. on top of the random tests being done. It seems for those living on campus to be an efficient method. So far RIT has had 10 student cases since the start of classes over 4 weeks ago.

16570

Have seen the same as you…kids around here have popped home then returned. Great vector for spread.

S19 will come home the day before T-day and quarantine. We plan to have our T-day dinner outside, much distancing, then he is isolated for the weekend. We hope to have him tested the following Monday so he can rejoin us.

It is completely unrealistic to think he would test 2 weeks before coming home then self-quarantine at school. Can’t avoid roommates and his few in-person classes, and I doubt he would avoid friends.

16571

If only the FDA would approve those cheap lick-the-strip tests… then he (and everyone else) could test every day for contagiousness.

Otherwise, it is unlikely that existing testing would be of any use for residential college students going home for Thanksgiving dinner:

  • Test a few days or a week before: could get the virus after testing.
  • Test the day before: could get the virus after testing, especially if going by airplane, and may not get the results in time.
  • Test on Thanksgiving day: probably not available, and results probably would not be available that evening.
16572

Read a recent report from Hamilton that they have currently spent a little over $7 million on Covid response, testing, policy, infrastructure, etc. It is taking a tremendous investment to control and keep the campus open and there is a long ways to go yet.

16573

yes @HamSBDad and there are many other colleges that have also committed equally tremendous resources for testing and infrastructure curriculum other de densification changes.
But you are right so many resources expended and yet a long way to go…

16574

@HamSBDad - $7 million for one school. I can only imagine how much these schools’ budgets are being negatively impacted. Anyone else think that tuition hikes will have to happen sooner than later? I honestly think many will have little choice. It’s just a lose/lose situation for them. Wish this wasn’t the case, of course, but I’m anticipating it.

16575

I think the schools are trying to be more transparent with where the schools are with their respective opening plans. This pandemic situation is very fluid. It keeps on changing day by day. I personally prefer to be more informed of the changes in my kids school. Like I previously said, my daughter is at Colgate and I commend the school for trying to give out as much information about the active infections, quarantine and isolations, commitment violations etc. I also want to know how this cases are affecting the community where the campus sits. Hamilton has a small community hospital near campus. Should there be an increase in infection this could easily overwhelm the hospital and since we live 30 miles away and has 2 of the closest hospitals, and also work in the one of the hospitals, I want to know. RIT on the other hand where my son is, if you see the dashboard, its like a 3rd grader put up the information. Very minimal information from a school of what 13K? I don’t even know how many testing is being done at the campus. Bottomline for me is the more reliable information I can get from the school, the more I am able to assist my kids with how they are to act and assess their situation during the pandemic.

16576

Although in the South, not sure if you can attribute a less rigorous COVID response to the schools political bent or geographic location. Although other Virginia schools including UVA and JMU have had their testing problems, it seems they are still within the mainstream of the COVID testing spectrum. The president of W&L is the former provost at Williams, so I would not say the W&L administration is very Southern generally, it is a national school after all.

16577

From the Wellesley administration today:

Since I last wrote to you on September 7, we have performed almost 5,000 additional COVID-19 tests, nearly doubling our total for the fall to over 10,350 asymptomatic tests and a handful of symptomatic tests. Thankfully, no new cases have been found; we have still had only one positive test result. However, out of an abundance of caution, we are extending our twice per week testing protocol for students, instead of switching to weekly testing as we had initially planned. As we have seen time and time again on campuses across the country, a small outbreak among students can increase exponentially in a matter of days. We can avoid this outcome if we continue to remain vigilant. I know we are up to the task.

For more health and safety updates, please visit Keeping Wellesley Healthy and our COVID-19 dashboard, which provides daily updates on the results of our asymptomatic testing program.

16578

@waverlywizzard @123Mom123 The cost to all these schools is going to be staggering. Tuitions raised, staff layoffs, program cuts, athletics cancelled, school failings. I think we will see some of all of that and have already. The collegiate landscape will be changed.

16579

Seems like their increasing testing now at Michigan. https://record.umich.edu/articles/u-m-to-increase-its-capacity-for-asymptomatic-covid-19-testing/

16580

Re W&L, if it isn’t politics and it isn’t geography that’s driving the outbreaks, maybe it’s academics? About 40% of the student body majors in business management and marketing. Masks and SD are bad for business. In the short run.

16581

Update on the situation at BC – testing going up, numbers going down:

Boston College continued to experience a steady decrease in positive COVID-19 cases this past week, closing out the week of September 14-20 with 17 positive cases resulting from 4,639 total tests, including 3,248 tests of undergraduates.

The downward trend followed a spike of 73 cases last week (September 7-13) that University Health Services said was attributable to several off-campus gatherings where students did not wear masks or practice physical distancing.

The University increased its testing capacity this past week in light of the increase in positive cases that occurred September 7-13. Since testing began on August 16, the University has conducted 29,741 tests of BC community members, including 18,521 tests of undergraduates, resulting in 127 positive tests, including 125 undergrads. By contrast, Boston University has reported 105 total positive cases, Providence College 141, Northeastern University 62, and University of Notre Dame 698.

Currently, there are 24 BC undergraduates in isolation–12 in University isolation housing and 12 recovering at home. A total of 103 undergraduates have recovered and returned to normal activities.

“The increase in cases that occurred during our fourth week of testing (September 7-13) was concerning to all of us,” said Director of University Health Services Dr. Douglas Comeau. “We are pleased that the numbers have steadily decreased each day since, and we will continue to quickly identify and test individuals who are deemed to be close contacts of anyone testing positive.”

Comeau said that Boston College continues to work closely in its contact tracing with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ Contact Tracing Collaborative and the departments of health in Boston, Newton, and Brookline. As of September 21, 94 of the 127 positive cases on campus were identified through the University’s contact tracing efforts.

UHS announced that it would increase its asymptomatic testing beginning this week to Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays throughout the semester, all in the MAC Courts in the Margot Connell Recreation Center, in addition to its daily symptomatic testing conducted through University Health Services and The Broad Institute. Results are posted to the BC Reopening website. The University expects to conduct more than 6,000 tests this week.

The weekly community test totals since testing began are as follows:

7,681 tests conducted Week of August 16-23. Positivity Rate 0.04%
10,127 tests conducted Week of August 24-30. Positivity Rate 0.08%
4,322 tests conducted Week of August 31-September 6. Positivity Rate 0.60%
2,972 tests Week of September 9-13. Positivity Rate 2.46%
4,639 tests Week of September 14-20. Positivity Rate 0.37%

University Communications / September 21. 2020