I’m wondering now what, if any, this will have on fall study abroad programs or by that time will we have abandoned hopes of containing it so travel would resume. My daughter is not planning to study abroad but was hoping to get a sub-lease for the fall from someone who is because she’ll be moving into her sorority house in the spring.
Purdue flew their Shanghai-based engineering students home quite a while ago - they covered the costs and integrated the students into classes on campus when they returned, after a quarantine period. One of my D’s friends was supposed to go but dropped after last semester (GPA dropped below 3.0, a requirement).
She’s scheduled to go to Japan for 10 days over Spring Break - leaving in 2 weeks. We’re keeping an eye on what’s going on.
Okay, “panic” is politically correct now? :lol:
Please point to any case of a healthy, college aged person dying from this virus.
My guess is at some point this virus will become the new normal, like seasonal influenza. Hopefully a vaccine will become available sooner rather than later to especially protect older people and those with previous health conditions. And that the virus won’t morph into something worse. All we can do is speculate right now.
Here’s NYU’s press release from last night: https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2020/february/Coronavirus_NYU_Florence.html
And an article from NYU Local: https://nyulocal.com/nyu-florence-to-close-its-campus-cancel-class-due-to-coronavirus-concerns-e7de10d97097
OP: Please follow NYU’s guidance.
Don’t rely on guesses by anonymous posters.
The CDC & the WHO are having enough difficulty understanding this virus.
You don’t want your child hospitalized in a foreign country when you & your spouse cannot get to her immediately.
This is a serious illness with unknown consequences. Take all precautions that you can.
Again, please follow NYU’s advice.
P.S. OP: What options will your daughter have if a travel ban is imposed ?
Elon and Syracuse are closing their programs in Italy.
@Publisher, please reread my initial post. I was merely relaying what a friend in the NYU Rome program had told DD yesterday. DD is in the United States, not in Rome. I don’t have a dog in the fight, just wanted to start a thread to provide information on study abroad issues related to the Coronavirus. DD’s friend is on her way home now, by the way.
@marrast: Thank you for the clarification.
No dog, no fight, just offering advice just like you are raising awareness.
If we just sit & wait for things to develop, the situation may, and has, worsened. Travel bans are a very real concern at this time with respect to Italy.
Delighted to hear that commonsense & caution has prevailed & that the friend of your daughter is on her way home now.
Thank you for sharing this information.
A scientist friend was expecting an intern from Italy to arrive in early March for a project at an Illinois lab. Yesterday, the US denied this student her visa. My friend thinks it must be the virus, since the all the paperwork was correct, turned in, approved - and she’d had no problems in the past getting Italian students for this internship.
The CDC has been issuing alerts today as well.
Possible travel ban soon.
There’s the rub, though… most of the cases have happened in a country that is known for concealing facts and underreporting negative information. Nobody believes the “statistics” coming out of China. Due to the lack of data, the only thing most people would be comfortable believing is that there is a new disease that appears to be very contagious and is killing large numbers of people. Beyond that, it’s a guess. And the small bit of anecdotal evidence we have - such as knowledge of young, healthy doctors dying - indicates it might not be just the 80 year old TB patients who are at risk.
Not time to panic, but reasonable to assess how much risk one is comfortable with. The answers will be different for everybody.
CNN just shared warnings of an oncoming pandemic. WHO & CDC are issuing warnings. This is a serious health situation.
This is a time for exercising caution.
I just returned from doing some domestic air travel. I went with bleach wipes and hand sanitizer and disinfected my entire seat, arm rests, tray table, magazines, and the window/shade. I saw many, many other people doing the same. I’ve never seen that before, even during bad flu seasons.
My skin is a mess because I’m constantly hand washing.
It is a “serious situation” because it triggered an unwarranted amount of mass panic.
Wow ! Just Wow ! At a loss for words.
Thousands have died. Many, many thousands are hospitalized.
What do you consider to be “serious” ?
P.S. I have not heard of any “mass panic” or “panic” whatsoever. In fact, reaction has been too slow due to unreliable under-reporting.
When a city as big as SF redirects all of their public resources to answering questions about the virus, yes, it is mass hysteria. Meanwhile, there are overdoses, street crime, piling garbage, etc.
SF didn’t care about those other conditions before, that is just normal there.
Not surprisingly, my D received notice today that they are looking for alternatives to her Japan study abroad that starts in two weeks.
Per CDCs data, the death rate for any age group 10 and up is not zero. So college age individual(s) have died. I’m not interested enough to dig up the actual health of those who died. And anyone who thinks this isn’t very serious would likely find a way to discount it anyway,
We spoke to the schools today. Actually I have two students abroad, Rome, Paris. One school is Ok for return after some paperwork filed (to get credit), The other is meeting today and tomorrow to make decisions.
We sent letters to the students (our kids) about the seriousness of the situation. Since they are technically adults we are encouraging them to make a decisions themselves. BOTH of them have immune system issues, which is probably why I haven’t slept in weeks.
We haven’t had much help from our friends who are infectious disease experts. They are very la de da about it, which I think has misled us. Scientists sometimes look at numbers and don’t understand that these numbers are NOT the whole story.
@RichInPitt No way I would agree to a trip to Japan right now.