^I often have students in my Zoom class we are just coming from f2f, and they end up in a computer lab or the library or an outside table, taking an online class with their mask on. Peak pandemic schooling.
How far are the dorms from the classroom buildings?
Seems like this is similar to the usual pre-COVID-19 problem that students sometimes encounter with classes in adjacent time slots at opposite ends of a large campus. Running athletes may not have an issue with that, but less athletic students may.
That is AWESOME! My son applied to (and was accepted by) Hampshire when he was in high school (that was two schools ago 
). I’m glad that he ended up at a music conservatory, because that’s where he belongs, but I have always admired Hampshire, and anyone who walks the walk (especially for the homeless) is eligible for my personal pantheon of saints–especially now, when being homeless is no doubt more frightening and unpleasant than usual.
Often a high case count in the college town community while there is a low case count on campus is a sign that the college’s testing is inadequate.
Parents need to start thinking about how they will handle their kids returning home at Thanksgiving.
Fast Uptick at Hamilton with a few weeks to go. Code yellow https://www.hamilton.edu/returning-to-campus/public-dashboard
Hm. If students are being tested twice a week and not leaving campus much then where would the uptick come from?
Appears what threw them into yellow is the Number in Quarantine. Not cases per se.
Hamilton Dashboard is excellent. It divides up students vs employees. Take a look at the employee numbers. They equal students. Which is of concern. Maybe its in the community coming in?
Maybe Hamilton will come out and comment on where the rise is stemming from.
I think the government has a responsibility to provide testing for communities. Most colleges are not doing enough testing of their students, and there is no need for them to take care of the community as well.
@jagrren I will agree with this. The responsibility to protect citizenry I don’t think should fall on colleges. I am holding my elected officials accountable for their covid response for the citizenry of my state. Especially of its response (and failings) to vulnerable populations.
^
Exactly agree AND when all is said and done, its our children (next generation) that will be paying for the exorbitant cost of this awful virus (regardless of its origins, which I hope the world will continue to look into). As well, they will be the ones tasked with figuring out the environmental mess and more that they are inheriting.
More power to our next gen and all of the current and future the solution makers! Education is a big part of it, so our colleges need to focus on what they do best.
I was responding to concerns that colleges would “ close” ie go remote because cases in the local community are rising.
In places where the colleges are testing its students bi weekly yet the local community are not getting any where near that it’s in the colleges interest to help out. The school doesn’t exist in a vacuum.
Spare me, the people paying the price for this virus are the dead, including medical workers, bus drivers and minimum wage essential workers who caught it by keeping society running.
This is what my area public school district did for the entire K-12. Basically, the parents were asked if they want their kids to do 100% remote or do a hybrid. Those who signed up for hybrid the students were divided into 2 groups- cohort A (red) and cohort B (blue). A does in-person classes every Mondays and Wednesdays. B goes to school Tuesdays and Thursdays. They do remote on opposite days. Fridays- the cohorts take turns attending in person classes. So there are weeks that cohorts do a 3-2 in person/remote or 2-3. This way buses, classrooms and cafeterias are not crowded.
Currently Oneida County has 161 active cases. Based on the charts 1.7% positive cases are coming from colleges (six colleges in the area), but 27% of positive cases are from nursing homes which I am not surprised as this Friday alone, we received more than 200 covid swabs from one nursing home and today another 115 swabs are expected to arrive from another nursing home.The next 25% of positive cases are designated as other, with the next highest of 11% from private business, followed by healthcare and state corrections at 7.9 and 7.8 respectively. Manufacturing, food services, group homes, farms, public/charter schools and county corrections make up the rest.
@kpopmomrunner that is so sad and seems to follow the experience earlier in Mass. It took 70 veterans dying of covid in one VA rest home for the state to get behind testing and protecting vulnerable elders whose care is directly regulated by the state. I am so sorry but if MA experience is any indicator there will be a lot of suffering by those frail elders in nursing case in Oneida county that could have been averted with regularized and robust asymptomatic testing.
Visitors to nursing homes were allowed late summer. Same thing in our hospitals but with limited time and only one person at a time. The positive cases so far that was communicated to us are from employees testing positive. I’m not sure how often employees are tested per week. In our lab, our phlebotomists who go to the nursing homes must be tested once a week. I won’t be surprised if Gov Cuomo starts reverting back to some restrictions again. I’m thinking also with the cold weather, people are staying more time indoors. It does makes me nervous as I have a 10th grader and the school district is doing a 3:2 hybrid in person/remote classes. I hope the cases stay low as right now despite the 3 hospitals in the area including ours, our lab may not be able to handle the workload for testing as we are beyond below minimum staffing.
@kpopmomrunner --I believe that one of the problems for the nursing home staff is access to testing. Many of the aides work less than full time at a nursing home/assisted living facility and then shift work in private homes via agencies. I recall reading about nursing homes requiring that the aides obtain testing at their own expense.
I do not think this problem has been eliminated, with exceptions like MA where the Broad Institute conducts testing. Until we have inexpensive testing readily available, I fear we will continue to see spread in nursing homes as we did in the tri-state area and MA this winter & spring.
@circuitrider, agree the next week or two will be critical, if the role model schools are able to hold the line on positive test, that will give confidence to others. If numbers slip at these schools, that will be a leading negative indicator. Next question, if the schools must close early, does that mean that the Spring opening announcements are cancelled? At what point would schools need to make decision on a “second reopening”? Hopefully we never have to consider this scenario.
Agree. It has always been lack of testing (and lack of PPE in the spring) of employees and visitors that caused huge outbreaks in nursing homes across the country. The death rate in the spring in the northeast was horrific because of these testing gaps and PPE, a lack of knowledge on how the virus spreads, and obviously how the death rate is so much higher for the elderly, in general. Most states in the northeast had no policies for repatriating Covid positive patients back in and still had just as horrific death rates in nursing homes as NY - but that has been the narrative that had been focused on as a cause of death. There is no excuse now - except, as we can already see- the lack of testing is still a fail everywhere. Nursing homes should be doing more testing than colleges are doing and they are not. Even Hospitals are not testing staff- in most cases - AT ALL. Sad. This is not the fault of the colleges, it’s the fault is the government.