I wish I knew. The “common sense” of many Americans have given us nearly 240,000 deaths and rising fast.
Just the certification? Not an actual education? An attitude which is unfortunately all too common and one of the things that makes my job as demoralizing as it is.
That may be in part due to the high cost of college. Someone who wanted only the education and did not care about the certification aspects (or the college experience aspects) may balk at paying the cost of college if they were motivated enough to try self-education in whatever their subjects of interest are.
The reality is the two are intertwined. People need to develop skills (via education) that will allow them to get a job (because they have skills that someone is going to pay them for).
One of the consequences of the meteoric rise in college costs relative to average family income is that people are demanding an ROI.
Hence the explosion of enrollment in pre-professional programs (engineering, pre-health, business, health tech, etc.) across all types and levels of colleges, including at the most selective ones such as Northwestern, Duke, and U Chicago.
Even liberal arts institutions are increasingly adding business offerings, like Oberlin with their new business concentration. Some liberal arts schools are also adding majors such as cybersecurity, sports management, communications, and more. I expect there will be continue to be growth in all of these subject areas.
I am a radiographic tech. The vast majority of my education was obtained on the job, from patients and other staff and from reading journals and in house lectures.
The college “ extras” like getting drunk at the pub was fun but certainly not educational or worth going into extra debt for. So I studied part time while working in the hospital, building up the clinical hours requirement, the rest of the time.
There is no set path to career success, community college, Ivies or LACS all prepare you in different ways, longer term, it is the exposure to ideas, ways of problem solving, writing and communications skills and the analytical mindset that prepares you for a changing world of professional work.
Notre Dame sent out a message to their students: anybody who leaves the South Bend area before receiving the result of their exit test for COVID-19 will not be allowed to register for classes next semester.
The second wave is starting to impact my kids’ schools.
My younger D just received a message that the Senior High School is going virtual/video starting tomorrow for at least a week due to eight identified cases over the last few days. The Middle School had reverted to remote learning last week.
Purdue’s dashboard has ticked up to near a 6% 7-day rolling average, after being in the 3% range all semester, with the last few days a 7-8%. I’m hoping my older D can get through 2.5 more weeks before they’re home for the semester.
We are fortunate that my younger D was able to get the SAT in on Saturday - I suspect they would have cancelled if the cases has appeared just a few days earlier.
As Warren Buffett says, you only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out.
In this case, we found out even sooner.
https://www.purdue.edu/president/messages/campus-community/2020/2004-fall-message.php
Someone on our Purdue parent page said their daughters entire sorority house tested positive. Big surge in contact tracing this week but they’ve doubled the positivity rate in only a week.
They only have two weeks until the end of in person classes so I think they will make it to that point.
My d was tested last Monday after getting cold symptoms. She was allowed to isolate in her single (with private bath) until she got results. A case manager got back to her within 24 hours with her Negative results.
Positivity rate in my home county (In a different state) doubled this week too so I think what we are seeing at colleges are mirroring the population at large.
A bit of much-needed good news that couldn’t come soon enough:
Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine is more than 90 percent effective in first analysis
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/11/09/pfizer-coronavirus-vaccine-effective
“In Pfizer’s 44,000-person trial, there have so far been 94 cases of covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, in people who were not previously infected. Fewer than nine of those cases were among people who received two shots of the vaccine, a strong signal of efficacy.
…
The data committee noted no serious safety concerns.
…
Pfizer and BioNTech said they plan to submit an application for emergency authorization from the Food and Drug Administration after the third week of November”
Love the vaccine news but heard on 60 Minutes last night that only 60% of doctors and 40% of nurses in NJ say they will take a vaccine. What’s up with that? I hope colleges require it and at least that part of life can go back to normal sooner rather than later.
I think you’re going to see a wide range of requirements regarding a covid vaccination just like you do now among schools. In the northeast the required list is generally long and quite comprehensive. In contrast, CU Boulder only requires 2 MMR vaccines and DU (University of Denver) is the same except students in the dorms must also have had a meningococcal vaccine in the last 5 years.
At the K-12 level CO has a personal exemption for vaccines and the odds of that going away are slim to none.
If it’s really 90% effective, it’s enough if 50% get vaccinated.
Besides, if I could protect myself with this level of certainty, I would care a lot less about what others do.
For all the cases being reported, how many students are actually sick? Are they just cases (ie. asymptomatic) or are the actually sick? My youngest child’s physician said that if we tested this same way for the flu, no one would ever leave their house.
Your child’s doctor committed a converse error.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirming_the_consequent
What he should have said is if we had this many people hospitalized with flu we would test the same way.
https://covidtracking.com/data/charts/us-all-key-metrics
To bring it back on topic, as exciting as the recent vaccine news are, I doubt that the students will get vaccinated in time to ensure a return to normalcy this Spring.
For sure. I’m just shooting for fall! Late spring would be glorious though. Graduations could happen in a more regular way as could proms, etc. Not holding my breath for that though.
So how many students are sick? Or hospitalized? You didn’t answer the question. It’s important. You spread so much fear on this thread.
I hope there is more to the 60 minutes story, otherwise I feel like that’s irresponsible reporting. People are hesitant to get vaccines anyway, and if medical experts (doctors) aren’t getting it for themselves, they will think that the doctors must know something, so why should they put themselves at risk? Nothing like undermining the urgent need to get an effective (and safe!) vaccine. BTW, we should care about others getting the vaccine, because this won’t work for some people who get vaccinated, and some vulnerable people can’t receive vaccines, so they need others to get them.
Wow. I haven’t ventured into this thread in months. I can’t believe people still think all’s dandy as long as people are not sick or hospitalized. Notwithstanding the importance of illness and hospitalizations, those are not the correct yardsticks for determining the need for mitigation and containment.
Here’s the thing: Each new infection sets of a new chain of infections that otherwise would not have occurred. One college student who is infected—asymptomatic or not—will spread it to, say, three other people. Each of those three people spread it to three others, who each spread it to three others, who each spread it to three others, who each spread it to three others, who each spread it to three others . . .
Among the downstream cases sparked by each index case, people are hospitalized, ventilated, become long-haulers, and die.
Now imagine the above chain reaction, but there are 1,000 infected college-student index cases. It’s infectious. This is a matter of PUBLIC health.
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