I am betting that the dorms will not stay open for more than two weeks - lead pipe cinch they won’t be open for more than a month before they close and your children will be back home.
The dangerous part is that some will be Covid asymptomatic - you will think everything is just fine until you get it. And those consequences can be severe - deadly.
My youngest went to summer camp in North Georgia - it stayed open for 4 days before sending kids back home. The New York Times, Washington Post today have articles that reference a CDC study of the circumstances and the CDC reports that 260 counselors and campers tested positive of what they know - about 50% of the campers and counselors that were there. IT ONLY TOOK FOUR DAYS.
My twelve year old son had a fever, we quarantined away from each other when we got home. He tested positive but only had a fever for a few days. I successfully took care of him without getting it.
His friend and neighbor did not have symptoms when his Dad picked him up. So they did not quarantine from each other. The friend and his Dad both came down with COVID. THE DAD (healthy as a horse with no underlying conditions) IS NOW IN THE HOSPITAL IN THE ICU AND HAS BEEN FOR THREE WEEKS. And no telling how many other parents have been severely stricken. They haven’t announced that for privacy reasons.
I only knew four parents of the 260 or so that tested positive and one of those is almost dead.
The point being that it is irrelevant that Miami is more of a hot spot. It is living density among teenagers and young adults that will cause COVID to super spread.
By the middle of September Gainesville is going to be a COVID mess. I cancelled my oldest dorm assignment and he’s not going back to Gainesville until the country has COVID under control.
You may not like my saying this, but if you READ THIS AND IT INFLUENCES YOU - IT COULD SAVE YOUR LIFE.
I think that the vast majority of these students will have little or no complications if/when they contract it. Everyone has to decide what level of risk they are for complications and their tolerance for risk.
My bigger concern is what @golferdude says about bringing it home to family at Thanksgiving. Careful thought and actions should be considered before returning home. On the other hand, if it goes as many think, the virus may have already run its course and the students are recovered and not contagious at that point.
UF is not planning to do any testing except for athletes and kids with symptoms who want to be tested. Which means they are going to have a lot of asymptomatic cases walking around campus and they won’t know they have a problem until they have a great big mess of a problem
If they have the space, it would be nice if they could spread the students out a bit more. A number of schools are limiting on campus housing to singles wherever possible, but my daughter is scheduled to be in a two bedroom double with three other girls in Beaty.
Many schools I’m afraid are doing the exact same thing. There’s this attitude that as long as official positive tests aren’t recorded then there is no outbreak. I see many schools talking about quarantine scenarios for students who test positive, but there’s little to no information about when a student would be tested and who else would quarantine (roommate? hallmates? classmates?)
Some schools have as many students as a small city. Cities aren’t checking every resident 2-3 times a week (or even a month).
UF is one of those schools. There are just too many people to check all of them every week, and if one of those 40k people tests positive, no way to know how many others that one person came in contact with before the test came back positive.
^ which is why they would be better off to keep kids home (classes mostly online anyway) until we have a handle on this thing. We’re depending on 40k college kids to act responsibly, keep to a very tiny bubble (no parties period!), social distance, with no ability to really contact trace and test in real time.
Other countries are reopening schools and doing it without major problems…but they’re much smaller and have a much better evolved contract tracing protocol.
Think about it. The state of FL recently was adding 10k+ cases per day (down to 5k now which is nice progress). Impossible to contract trace that many people. Assum each person was in touch with 10 people. That’s 100k that need to be contacted and their contacts traced (exponential). That’s just one day! Oops tomorrow there another 10k case and 100k to contact. How many tracers would we need to reach the chain if that was even possible? And kids are coming from all over the state to Gainesville. What happens to the ones in off campus apartments where the UF rules really don’t apply are unable to be enforced (enforcement / compliance is key)? Again we’re counting on kids to do the right thing. Some will, some won’t. Virus will spread because that’s what it does,