I also think they could push it further and just start classes remotely from home and have kids come to campus even later. We don’t want S19 to enroll and then not be able to be on campus on Feb 8. If things do change, I hope they will allow kids to make their own changes at the last minute and take a leave if they want.
A 40,000+ person trial, which this is, is not “really small”. Neither is 90+ Infections with a calculated 94% effective rate.
Should peer review support this data, it’s a very big deal.
Purdue’s dashboard shows that of 2,000+ student tests since 8/1, 83% were classified as asymptomatic or very mild, 15% as mild, 2% as moderate and “<1%” as both significant and severe.
Staff severity, with 130 positive tests, skewed at bit more severe, though they had 0 at severe.
With 0 staff as severe, I assume the 5 hospitalizations were all students. There are currently no hospitalizations.
This is with a campus population of nearly 50,000. It’s obviously only one set of data, based on the local conditions.
@homerdog I really doubt they are going to delay the arrival of students for spring semester at schools that aren’t starting until February. They said today on CNN that we should be past the apex of the pandemic by Inauguration Day. The next few weeks will probably be the worst. Plus now they have a semester’s experience in how to successfully keep cases down.
A bit more on the slight uptick at Wesleyan recently. Testing was moved indoors yesterday in reaction to the change in daylight and other seasonal adjustments:
Wesleyan has also temporarily closed its gym which has been open to students all semester:
Not sure if any ND folks have commented - Notre Dame is requiring a negative test prior to departure next week. If a student does not get a test, they have a “registration hold” placed on their account. They cannot register for Spring classes until that is removed.
Also, the recent increase in cases is attributed to allowing in person dining in the dining halls. They are now back to take-out only.
Does Notre Dame have any challenges enforcing their zero tolerance policies at this point given what Jenkins did? Without question, people make mistakes. But that presumably also should apply to students (who arguably have a defense that based on youth, their judgment is still a work in process).
The vaccine was funded by Pfizer but researched and produced by a German Company BioNTech.
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The ND football victory celebration after the Clemson game was a nationally televised super spreader bleep-show. Everyone gets a test now.
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Simmons University released their plan for semester today:
Nearly all courses will be online again.
Students invited to live on campus, with greatly reduced capacity (can accommodate 500). Priority given to students with a curricular need (e.g., clinicals, in-person labs), international students, and those with extenuating circumstances. The remainder of available spaces will be offered via lottery. Students won’t hear until 12/15 if they’ve secured housing, and the school reserves the right to change things up until January 8th.
Residential students would begin a staggered move-in on Jan. 22nd. Classes begin on Feb. 1.
No spring break and classes run through the third week in May.
My D20 has decided there is too much uncertainty there and is not planning to try to secure a spot in the dorms. She has connected with a group of 6 other students and they are looking for off-campus housing together.
For the first time since March, it feels certain that she IS moving to Boston soon. She is super excited. Although she would have liked to have had the dorm experience, she doesn’t feel that this is a consolation prize. I should note that she has been having a very good experience with her online courses this semester, and still has a ton of enthusiasm for the academic side of the experience, even knowing it will be online again next semester.
I know some kids who have gotten quite sick from covid. But luckily not many. Rice just had a staff person die from it. As the numbers start to head up again, Rice is seeing more staff and grad students test positive (all get tested weekly). The school says contact tracing is showing very little evidence of on campus spread. Most positive cases (whether students or staff) seem to be originating off campus. Students are not restricted to campus but are asked to follow covid protocols (masks, distancing, etc.)
Rice also announced that classes with up to 40 students could be held in person next semester (up from 25). But, it’s still up to the professors to decide whether they want to be in person so not. Enough kids are remote that I highly doubt any class will come close to that many students in a classroom at any given time. Registration for Spring starts in a couple of days. It looks like my D will have two remote, two face to face and 2 in person labs (I think). More kids are coming back next semester. In D’s dorm they are asking some kids to give up their singles to make room for returning students.
My D’s school, Susquehanna, is experiencing an outbreak and have gone online for two weeks as a result. She is considering coming home since she’d be returning for T-day in that time period. There are new 21 cases this week, which is low, but since August there have only been 14 total.
Taverngirl’s post made me think about the optimal timing for kids going home with regard to their testing schedule, and then I thought about the kids at my D’s school.
Her school shortened the semester by 2 or 3 weeks so that instead of 2 semesters an academic year, they now have 3 this year. This was done to de-density the campus and yet give every class the opportunity for a full on-campus experience. Even though the semester is shorter, of course the same amount is being taught in each class as usual because you have to get the subject matter covered. So the tests are coming pretty fast and furious. I see from their FB page that a lot of kids are complaining about the timing of tests, but in a shortened semester there are so many fewer options for dates.
I’m glad my kid is in an off-campus apartment because she’s going to stay up there for Thanksgiving rather than undertake the 1,000 mile drive with all her stuff since kids who leave can’t come back until January. Also, the kids in the dorms actually have to move everything out of them since many will be assigned different rooms for the Spring semester.
I think the move, combined with the more condensed schedule, is causing a lot of stress for some kids.
An uptick at MIT:
https://now.mit.edu/latest-updates/uptick-in-covid-19-cases-how-to-change-the-trajectory
"To the members of the MIT community,
We are seeing a troubling uptick in the number of Covid-19 cases affecting our community. In the first nine days of November, we have identified 45 positive cases through our Covid Pass screening program. By contrast, we had just 30 cases in all of September and 46 in all of October.
In response to this increase, some of which was concentrated among students at MIT Sloan, the school recently suspended in-person classes for its first-year MBA students. We are continuing to monitor the situation among MIT Sloan students carefully.
As I wrote in my last update three weeks ago, most of the cases we are seeing appear to be the result of exposure away from campus, and do not reflect spread from person to person on campus. This is still the pattern – suggesting that the strong Covid-19 policies and procedures we have put into place are working successfully to minimize on-campus spread.
But we are still facing an increase in cases among members of our community. Therefore, it is critically important that you adhere to the following guidance both on and off campus:
Don’t assume you are fine just because you are being tested regularly.
[…]"
Not to mention the growed-ups.
I think this is spot on. We now have hope for some semblance of normality on college campuses in the Fall of 2021.
And I wonder is this makes the calculations a little different for going online after the holidays for the next semester. It seems like it’s a somewhat easier sell to say that we will be going online for the Winter/Spring semesters, and be fully face-to-face come next Fall.
Put another way, Covid-19 looks a little different if it’s now a 6-8 month thing, as opposed to something we have to learn to live with for years…
What do others think?
I agree. If I was in charge of a major university, in charge of its legacy, its reputation, its people in all of their roles, I believe now I would work a little less hard on figuring out how to “live with the virus”. I would probably focus on getting through this next semester unscathed, no major outbreaks and deaths attributable to me and my university, because there really isn’t a huge payoff at this point to taking risks and learning how to live with it if it’s just going to be one more semester. Why risk tarnishing your name if this is so short-term? If I believed it would be years, well then it’s not ok to sacrifice so much learning and so much connection and personal networking and the other good things that come with face-to-face interactions, but for one more semester? I think I would focus on preservation.
Of course, as a mom, I hope my kids’ school focuses on making the spring semester as educational and awesome and as face-to-face as it can safely be (although my kids are taking a lot of that into their own hands, out of necessity)–these precious 4 years go by in a blink, and obviously we’d love for every minute to be maxed out!
It will be interesting to see what schools have to say about the spring semester in their communications in the coming months.
Agree. The colleges and universities that took the biggest risks and made the biggest investments in order to re-open as safely as possible can afford to maintain the status quo for another semester. I feel sorry for the families for whom the entire year has basically been a bust. Rest assured that their child has the rest of their lives ahead of them and that this is really just a blip on the screen compared to what lies ahead.
The schools that took the biggest risks and the schools that made the biggest investments are not necessarily the same. Likewise, the students for whom the school year has been a bust thus far are not necessarily those that stayed home in the fall.
In fact, I’d venture to say that in many cases they aren’t, on both counts.