@waverlywizzard If you’re unable to take two cars so that the students can drive one, your best bet is having them sit in the back seat, windows open a bit, and all wearing masks. I’d feel pretty safe with those protocols in place.
Exactly my plan for tomorrow…
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@waverlywizzard According to Amherst the turnaround time is supposed to return to the typical 14 hours for tomorrow’s tests and tests after.
Update from Amherst; apparently a solid portion of sophomores (beyond those who need to be on-campus) were approved to return to campus through a petition process. They are also going to keep a waitlist for sophomores who weren’t approved through the petition process, but they said unless they have significant melt among students who initially decided to return between now and the beginning of the spring semester, the waitlist will be tight.
What are your thoughts for Spring? It seems like the # of infections are going to get worse over the next several months before things get better (maybe Summer 2021?) when a majority of citizens will have had a chance to get the 2 vaccines to start creating a herd immunity.
I feel that come January, colleges will start restricting f2f classes and on-campus housing to the September type restrictions and things will not be back to relative “normal” on college campusus until Fall 2021. Hope I’m wrong…
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So which grades are all on campus for spring? Are there any that won’t be allowed on campus at all?
My sophomore just returned from Hope College in Holland, MI this morning. Took the last final on Friday afternoon (online) and flew home from Grand Rapids today. I’m pretty happy overall with the way Hope handled the semester. However they did not do “end of semester” testing for students unless you had an immuno-compromised family member. They called it “peace of mind” testing and said you had to arrange that with outside sources. So we’re following the CDC recommendation to treat our kid as an “outsider” to the household for now. We drove in the car from the airport with masks and the windows open and went directly to a local drive-thru testing facility. We’re now waiting for that result and have an appointment to test again on Wednesday. We aren’t inviting anyone else over for Thanksgiving and are having our student basically isolate in one section of the house.
The scariest part of the whole process was baggage claim at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport. Very busy. People were wearing masks but not socially distancing as everyone jockeyed for position to grab bags. I couldn’t wait to get out of there!
@homerdog Nope. First-years, juniors, and seniors were all invited back, in addition to sophomore RA’s, and a solid portion of sophomores were allowed back through the petition process. Some sophomores not invited back; that is it.
@socaldad2002 https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america
This data suggests that under current projections (the purple dotted curve), the number of new coronavirus infections will peak in mid-December at roughly 455,000 infections, and deaths will peak in early January.
I don’t know about other colleges, but Amherst seems very confident in their plans, and I’m sure they are informed of the current projections. They don’t seem to be worried about having to reverse (though it should be noted that Amherst’s spring semester doesn’t start until February).
I think colleges will start to return to normal once vaccines are widespread enough that all their students can get vaccinated, which appears to be late spring semester as of current projections, but almost definitely by fall.
Right. Many states have “schools” as a priority for getting vaccines in their roll out plans (in addition to healthcare workers and nursing homes etc) so, depending on each states’ vaccine availability, it’s possible that students could start getting vaccines sometime late spring but I’m not counting on it!
Late spring to early fall seems to be the range of estimates for wide availability of vaccines for anyone who wants it (i.e. after the initial batches go to high priority groups like health care workers, etc.). Early fall may be marginal for schools and colleges to return to close to normal, but if it is earlier than that (or if instructors and/or students are moved to an earlier priority), then it may be more likely for fall term to return to close to normal.
But this coming spring term would be a different story, if the vaccine is not yet available enough, and the case count is exploding due to all of the travel, indoor family gatherings with the windows closed, etc…
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Wait, this seems terrible. So 100% of 3 grades are invited back. And then a substantial proportion of the 4th grade, but not all. So something like 85%-90% of students will be invited back. IMAGINE being part of the 10%??? How on earth can they not figure out a way to get that last bit on campus? I find that totally unacceptable. Better to leave all the sophomores off campus, then to leave just a small portion of them off. I really think this is terrible. I hope they figure it out! (Unless of course there are enough kids who do not wish to be on campus…maybe they can’t get there due to visa issues, or they made alternative plans…but if they are leaving just a handful of kids who wish to be there with no invitation, how could that not create extreme bitterness?). Imagine basically your whole school back, except you??? This sounds like the worst plan ever. Just invite 2 grades back if you can’t take them all. Or maybe 3. But NOT 3 1/2!!
By the way, I find the “petitioning” process to be questionable. I have heard stories of very, very, very exaggerated circumstances just so kids get to be on campus. I would not trust the stories these kids tell without doing true investigation. So maybe it’s just the kids willing to exaggerate who win spots on campus. I really can’t think this is a good idea.
Wow. That really brings home the logistics involved in this tricky transition period. Good post.
171 staff have tested positive. Why do you think none of these was from a student? Hospitalizations seems to have been removed from their dashboard - where do you see it?
“Herd Immunity” requires 80-95% of a population to be vaccinated and/or have disease antibodies. With about 15,000 on campus and 1,700 cases, no, not even close. The latest epidemiological studies I saw said 4 years and 2 million dead to achieve herd immunity in the US. Not really a viable option, IMHO.
Per ND’s dashboard, 5.8% positive tests, rolling 7 day average. AS high as 15% daily, last week. That’s not 97%+ negative.
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Just adding “close to normal”… Guess we need to see what that means. Every forum etc I have been on states students by fall if not sooner. Mask wearing still on campus. Hybrid schooling. The schools need to see what worked and what didn’t. It’s not going to be everyone with no masks.
@EmptyNestSoon2 My understanding is that roughly half of the sophomores didn’t bother petitioning and just decided to either go home or get apartments with their friends for spring semester. Of those who petitioned, the majority got approved, but some didn’t. So a minority of sophomores will be coming back, but a solid minority nonetheless.
The reason they are insisting upon not bringing everyone back is because, in addition to wanting everyone in single, Biddy Martin (the president of Amherst College) is insistent upon (and borderline obsessed with) a 7:1 student-bathroom ratio. I have several relatives who are doctors and they all insist there are no studies and no data which suggest that a certain student-bathroom ratio is paramount (and they said that 7:1 has no significance and is just an arbitrary number they made up), but Biddy for some reason is really insistent upon 7 to 1. At the point where most are invited back, they should honestly probably just abandon the obsession with that bathroom ratio and let the last few kids who petitioned to come to campus, because they would still have enough rooms to put everyone in singles. D is bummed because her best friend is one of the students whose petitions got rejected.
With regard to the petitioning process, D heard there were a few kids who either exaggerated or flat-out lied about their circumstances to get approval to return in spring, but very few. However, it was kind of a mess because there was confusion over the difference between the petition process and the waitlist process. Only a few days AFTER most students had petitioned did the college say that only students with special circumstances should petition, and others should wait for the waitlist; HOWEVER, the college did approve the petitions of many sophomores who did not have or claim to have special circumstances (most petitions approved were for those sophomores), so it was kind of a mess. It seems that they tried to approve as many petitions as possible beyond those who truly needed to be on-campus, and as a result, the waitlist is going to be very tight unless there is a lot of melt between now and the beginning of spring semester.
I think back to normal will be different on different campuses. On smaller, remote campuses, if everyone is required to be vaccinated, I don’t see why sports aren’t back in full swing, kids live in doubles, meals are eaten in the cafeteria and classes are in person. I guess they could have students still wear masks in certain situations but not clear on why. These colleges are different than a big university set within a town with students and locals on top of each other. Faculty and staff would, of course, be required to be vaccinated as well.
Non student, non essential workers are required to operate sporting events, the dorms,
and cafeteria. Unions will require them to be vaccinated before returning to work, or at least they should, which may be after the students and during the “general population” vaccination stage.
Even if vaccinated, 5% of the population may still contract COVID ( the vaccine is 95% effective). In addition, there will be those who are unable, due to contraindications, to take the vaccine, and some unwilling to do so. As always, the college response depends upon one’s degree of risk aversion.
It is also highly unlikely, and probably illegal, for a union to require vaccination.
All kinds of people – contractors, delivery personnel, construction workers, etc., --access campuses every day even now.
Re: unions – There are some quiet grumblings that a vaccine requirement isn’t part of the current negotiated agreement so new negotiations on the contract would have to happen first.