I think you’ve just touched on a major reason for the diversity in reactions to this issue. People who have or have loved ones who have health conditions or are otherwise vulnerable at an increased rate would understandably have an increased level of concern.
I think the issue with college age students getting the virus is that even though THEY may recover, the people they inadvertently spread the virus to may NOT - meaning parents, elderly relatives etc.
My daughter is at Stanford and they just terminated the Stanford in Florence program. They have 3 days to return home. UGHHHH.
She is due to leave for Oxford in late March. They sent an email to all the kids saying they can voluntarily pull out now if they wish without any penalties, etc and get placed back into housing at Stanford. But that they may cancel the overseas programs entirely for Spring Q depending on how things go. Sigh. We already bought plane tickets, etc. for the entire family to go over there and spend Spring Break together. I am so disappointed and saddened by all of these scary events.
I would do whatever your kid’s specific college recommends. If you leave a kid in a country where the study abroad program has pulled out, they will not be supported by the study abroad program.
It looks like different programs are addressing this in different ways.
The issue is not just about your kid getting sick or ill it’s how they will react to 1) quarantine 2) finding medical care (system is already overrun) 3) being alone while sick if you can’t get to them if you need to.
If classes are canceled (or likely will be soon), I don’t see the point of staying.
for people with any kind of underlying medical condition- I would say bring them home.
What happened in Italy is the straw that broke the camel’s back. They went from 3 people on Friday to 300 people today. It’s different than a huge epidemic in the far East for those of us in the West. Feels very close to home. The hand-washing is not working, hospitals are vigilant about cleaning and wearing gloves and masks how did this spread so much in Italy (current belief is it spread from a hospital)?
Our parent board for my D’s college is currently discussing all the upcoming spring break and Maymester abroad trips. Lots of calls are being made to the study abroad office. Sounds like the Italy trips are going to be cancelled and that they are monitoring the situation in other countries closely.
@suzyQ7 yes it started in a hospital. The patient reported that he had not been to China and did not have known contact with anyone with the virus. Coronavirus protocols weren’t put into place but he later tested positive for it. Meanwhile it spread. They haven’t been able to track down who he got it from and likely tested a lot more people than would have normally been tested. Because people can be positive with mild symptoms I wonder what the numbers would be like if they weren’t trying to find patient zero. And now anyone with symptoms is getting tested. Would they have otherwise been tested? Probably not. My D here in the states had symptoms of a cold but because she woke up with a fever of 101 and we have a unique situation in our household I needed to find out what the fever was from so I took her in and to our surprise she had influenza B. This was in Dec. She was vaccinated. My point being we never would have had her tested had I not been worried about another family member. Turns out her fever never returned and she was sick for just two days. I’m pretty sure there are many people out there with influenza and Coronavirus walking around who aren’t getting tested. A lot of cases are mild enough to be able to get on with normal living. I have to wonder if Italy really has that many more cases than other countries outside of Asia.
Italy has 11 confirmed deaths due to the novel coronavirus, more than any other country outside of Asia, so it isn’t just hysteria.
The President of the US will be speaking tonoght about the coronavirus according to a report on CNN this morning.
There are just too many unknowns.
The situation in Italy has spread throughout the country.
The president speaks and tweets daily. I would not tune in. He is not the person I would listen to (or any politician for that matter).
Listen to the expert folks who have firsthand information: the heads of the NIH and the CDC.
“Coronavirus protocols weren’t put into place”
What ARE the coronavirus protocols though? Does anyone know?
The president says it’s all good, will pass when spring comes. Similar to what totalitarian regimes say when faced with something they don’t like or makes them look bad. I’ll listen to the CDC… hopefully they don’t get muzzled.
I am writing from Florence. I have worked in Study Abroad for over 20 years. The first thing I feel I need to say is that this is not some mass panic - hospitals are NOT overwhelmed, supermarkets operate normally and are restocked! Much of that mass buying you saw was in the zones where people were told to stay home for 2 weeks - no Uber eats! more people have been tested in Italy than other EU countries so of course, it comes up as more - the vast majority have no symptoms and don’t develop anything. The people who have died were all older - with chronic health issues - most were in their mid-80’s, the health system is operating normally and provides free and equal access to one and all. The main protocol that was put into place two weeks ago was not followed in that people with flu symptoms were to CALL the emergency services and NOT to come to the ER or other local health clinics. This is what happened with the 38-year-old and how there got to be such a high concentration in that cluster of small towns.
As for program closures, it is of course up to the university to decide - however it does not seem as though a combination of US (CDC / State Department) and Italian (Ministry of Health and local health officials) had much input on this. There is no declared emergency from the US and thus travel/program insurance cannot be activated (not that this is a reason not to act). The students have been here for several weeks and many (other than travel) live relatively isolated lives and probably are at low risk - in that 90% don’t use public transport, are in facilities only with other students from their program - who they also live with, and other than travel to other countries are probably in a good place. It is more than likely that some might already be exposed or not. During a semester people in the field deal with all sorts of health issues from complications from diabetes to the, I didn’t know I was pregnant scenario. I feel it was probably safer to keep the students here and restrict their movements and work on prevention - for individuals it might seem very easy to send them home - but you are talking about 1 to 2.000 students without considering those in other parts of the country. This might mean they need to go to other cities and or have overnights other places on their way back - which of course traveling puts them at a much higher risk of exposure.
So this will probably take up to two weeks for this to happen. What if then the US starts to have outbreaks and they end up being quarantined upon arrival? I’m not saying that’s the case or that they should not come back - but I do feel that the universities despite all their talk about emergency planning have not thought this through very well.
I remember when September 11 happened and we didn’t lose 1 student - they all stayed (no choice for a few weeks) but maybe a few went home and came back a week later. Social media and the news cycle make it very difficult to accurately represent what things are actually like on the ground and if you do - you then worry about liability and lack of action. So that is my two Euros - being concerned about loved ones can also stop us from thinking rationally through what is happening and finding out the details.
The deaths are not necessarily DUE to the virus but rather in the postmortem they found that they had the virus. I thought it would be helpful to translate from the original article in Corriere della Sera about the people who have died:
“” The clarification is important because these patients were elderly (almost all over 70) hospitalized in the various hospitals with previous pathologies. In all likelihood the new pathogen, for which few of us today have antibodies, has contributed, by causing interstitial pneumonia with great respiratory damage, to the weakening of an already particularly fragile organism due to an existing disease such as tumor, cardiological diseases , diabetes. And this is in line with all the epidemiological studies conducted so far: the risk of death increases with age (for those over 80 it reaches 14.8%) and if the patient, as written, has pre-existing medical conditions, the so-called comorbidity (and here too the risk percentages vary: + 10.5% for heart patients; + 7.3% for diabetics; + 6.3% for those suffering from chronic respiratory diseases; + 6% for those with hypertension; up at + 5.5% for those with cancer).“”
here is the link to the original article in Italian: https://www.corriere.it/salute/malattie_infettive/20_febbraio_24/coronavirus-vittime-sono-davvero-morte-covid-19-7b733736-56e8-11ea-b89d-a5ca249e9e1e.shtml
CDC called for preparations for an oncoming pandemic in the US.
Administration officials apparently ordered CDC to reissue a toned down statement.
President upset about effect on the stock market & on the economy.
While I agree that the CDC is a great source, it appears that the CDC is now being restrained from sharing its full concern, according to Fox & CNN reports.
US Government issued a travel advisory for those traveling to Italy.
New York City preparing. Has distributed 1,500,000 surgical masks & is asking the federal government for assistance in getting 300,000 more masks ASAP.
@studyabroadmed thank you for the report from the field.
I, also, have a kid studying abroad. Presently, she is traveling in another country with her class (they are known for a course week where they travel to another country). She will head back to her “home” country tomorrow. Presently, there have not been any cases in either of those countries. There will be. Just like it will be here in the US. I believe it is just a matter of when.
I am trying not to over-react and pull the panic button. More people still die from the flu each year. I am watching the news with interest.
Semester at Sea denied entry to Seychelles due to coronavirus fears
"The MV World Odyssey, part of Semester at Sea, an educational cruise program with hundreds of American students on board, was denied entry to Seychelles as it diverted from China due to coronavirus warnings.
“We diverted from China, avoided Malaysia and India, which were on our itinerary. Seychelles is the only country that has denied entry to our ship. We received word from the minister of health there that they were denying visitors from Iran, South Korean, China and Italy," Layne Hanson, vice president of public affairs for Semester at Sea, told CNN.
Hanson added that they were denied despite not having any medical issues on the ship, and despite not having visited any of those countries.
“We are trying to be as transparent as possible. We suspect that Mauritius which was on our itinerary may do the same thing that Seychelles did so we are voluntary moving away from Mauritius. Our next stop will be Mozambique,” Hanson said." (CNN)
If the rate of infection in Italy continues, US would have no choice but to quarantine travelers who have been to Italy upon their return. The window to return without quarantine could be shut very quickly.
Hi Lucy! Please don’t be more worried than you can help yourself. Most people will never know they even had it - especially people of their age - as long as they have not been burning the candle! Let’s remember they are not resting people in other countries - hopefully it won’t be of the same level and we caught some bad luck - because if we look at this - it is very much bad luck that one was standing next to someone or had that “dirty tray table”. I think it important as well to not stress out the students who frankly have been living their lives and not been complaining of empty supermarkets and the guy from Monty Python calling “bring out your dead” - in any event the main message of the WHO and health authorities here is wash those hands, don’t touch your face, watch out for hackers and avoid transport during rush hour. I’m sure it will all be fine and your child will have a great semester.
That refers to an event with an Alitalia flight there two days ago - https://www.reuters.com/article/china-health-italy-flight/update-1-mauritius-blocks-some-italian-visitors-over-coronavirus-concerns-alitalia-idUSL5N2AO35K - ROME, Feb 24 (Reuters) - An Alitalia plane landed in Mauritius on Monday but some of the passengers and crew opted to return straight home after being told they would have to go into quarantine because of local concerns over the coronavirus, the airline said.
Some 224 passengers and crew had been aboard the flight from Rome to the Indian Ocean island, but 40 people from the northern regions of Lombardy and Veneto decided to head home because of the quarantine threat, Alitalia said.
Alitalia added that the decisions by the Mauritian authorities had not been disclosed to the carrier before landing and that it had alerted authorities in order to clarify the reasons why its passengers’ movements had been restricted.
Or, at some point, it gets so widespread no quarantines happen at all and it becomes like the seasonal flu. If you look at the list of countries where there are now cases, it has expanded greatly in the past couple of days.