Nonetheless colleges better have plans in place for a situation that is so much more complicated than morbidity rates.
Despite the fact that this was largely an unforeseen crisis and that colleges can hardly be faulted for going to emergency plans this current semester, colleges are already facing lawsuits in both NYC and Chicago. Colleges are acting as if they’re doing students a favor by changing to pass/fail grading this semester. Really? Can you imagine receiving a failing grade for a course in which you received inferior instruction and none of the normal support support services after paying full price? Outrageous.
Now we are going into a new academic year in which the pandemic and its effects are not unforeseen. Bringing students back, knowing that some will get sick means that the college bears at least some if not all of the burden for the consequences. This is a debilitating illness which requires that a student be quarantined for an extended period. For many of the students who become infected, it means their semester is essentially over. Will the college refund the tuition? Let them repeat the courses without penalty?
It’s not about a risk free solution. It’s about reasonable and equitable plans to deal with the complications. So far there are still colleges refusing to allow students to take leave for the year, essentially forcing them to come back on campus under these conditions or sacrifice whatever progress they’ve made toward their degree so far. That kind of policy is unconscionable.
Nobody should be “forced” to come on campus, but schools may be sued either way. There is no way to avoid complications so the goal should be to manage the risk. Some reliable data about fatalities from covid is important. By way of example, the Massachusetts Board of Health reports that of the covid fatalities in that state, the average age is 82. About 64 % were over 80 years old, 86 % over 70 yrs old and 95 % over 50 yrs old. No one under 20 in Massachusetts has died from covid. 1 person under 30 has died and 7 others under 40 have died. The point is the public health policy relating to reopening colleges in the fall has to make a realistic risk assessment, and should be focused on protecting the vulnerable population (especially those over 65 and definitely those over 80). However, we cannot keep colleges closed/reduced to online learning until the virus is eradicated ( and that was never the stated goal of the shelter in place orders).
There were outbreaks of mumps on many college campuses this fall. Flu, and mumps, and COVID, can in extraordinary cases be fatal to college aged kids, but almost never are, nor do they have severe cases of any of the above. I know a dozen kids with covid, and they are all basically fine, and would need to take care of me if I get sick, not the other way around, @billmarsh. The kids bounce back the next day. The middle aged suffer.
I think my post got lost in the Harvard story/non-story. This college seems to be one of the first to have come up with a solution that covers a bunch of possible scenarios. I wonder if other colleges are considering doing this? Any thoughts?
I expect that the colleges that are pushing ahead to be on campus are working on solutions to everything mentioned here times ten. A few posts ago, someone raised questions about kids who get sick and essentially lose their semester, will they get a refund, etc. First, I would agree with the posts that the young people seem to get short, mild cases. I only know 4 people under 30 who tested positive, all in mid-20s, and the worst one felt quite sick for a week but continued to do her investment banking work at home that week—so she couldn’t have been that sick. Then she was fine. The other 3 claimed to feel comparable to a bad cold with headache, also not more than a week (although 2 have the lingering loss of sense of smell). So I doubt there will be many kids who get incapacitated and lose a whole semester. But if there are some, yes, I would suspect schools will be very generous in those situations. They are working on these plans. They are working to totally re-design schedules so classes don’t let out simultaneously so hallways won’t be crowded, use buildings for more hours of the day so they will be emptier and classes with 15 kids can be in rooms that usually hold 45, classes for 45 can be in rooms that can hold 150, etc. They have created task forces to look into ALL of the potential issues. They are looking at renting out Local hotels to send kids who need to quarantine so they will have their own rooms with own bathroom. Etc etc. They have plans to redesign spaces and move furniture to keep people further apart. I believe they plan to have classes available online to an extent, so the quarantined kids plus the kids who choose to stay home plus the international kids who get stuck home due to visa issues will all have some option to study. They will consider every angle. I teach at a college and am in my 50s. I’d say definitely more than half of my colleagues are younger than I am. I would suspect that the beloved 80+ year olds will stay home, as well as any who will be more comfortable doing so. But I can say that as someone in her 50s, I feel comfortable social distancing from my students and relying on masks, sanitizer, and hand washing. It will not be risky like being a frontline worker by any means! I will not feel like a hero going to work. I don’t think it’s accurate to assume that all professors want to stay online—there’s no monolithic response, but my impression is that the majority would like to return (with safety measures). This will be a painfully difficult decision though, because it’s just so hard to know what will happen. It is wise for them to delay decision making as long as they can.
My reading of Harvard’s release was that they will not be delaying the start of instruction to January, which had been rumored. Instruction, remote or in-person, will begin this fall. Nothing else has been decided.
So now you’re an expert, based on the dozen people you know? The real experts disagree with you. Regardless, why debate this issue here? It’s a waste of time. Colleges will be guided by expert opinions, not by message board posts. All we can do is wait and see. You’re beating a dead horse.
Colleges will be guided by expert opinions,<<<<<<<<<<
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I think that is optimistic, the country is not being managed by experts, the states are winging it as they see fit. Colleges will be in the hands of their states. The super special colleges will do whatever they like. As we are about to see, in a month, what happens when things are left to chance, we won’t need to speculate for long.
Colleges will try to follow expert opinions to the extent that they are available and within the rules set by the states. Right now, there is lack of information on many aspects of COVID-19 that make it impossible to get a well-defined idea of risk levels. Colleges are hoping for better information in the near future, but it is not guaranteed that it will become available before they are forced to make decisions about the upcoming fall semester or quarter. So they could be forced to make poorly informed decisions because there is not enough good information available.
You know a dozen young people who are just fine, but somehow you know that they had covid? If they are just fine or had minimal symptoms and would have been able to take care if you, it’s highly unlikely that they would have been tested, so how do you know they had covid?
they had positive test results, @billmarsh, and were all friends. Tested due to adult family members who brought the virus back from trips abroad and then spread it, unintentionally, through a high school class. The ability to get tests, like PPE and medical care in general, is widely disparate. FWIW, my opinion is informed not just by my personal experience, but by the judgment of a local ER doctor, who believes teens/college aged are at extraordinarily low risk of serious complications, and who will send his own daughter to residential college several states away this fall (he hopes).
Let’s face it. There are still too many unknowns to make an informed decision anywhere yet. Decisions made on the basis of speculation or worse will likely look foolish in a few months. The colleges that are able to put off their decisions have an advantage. They include colleges with a late start date (e.g. colleges on quarter system) or fully residential colleges (so their student don’t have to sign off-campus leases).
You must be really unusual. I don’t know 12 people of any age who positively diagnosed with covid, nor 12 who have been tested at all. But you know 12 just of college age in particular who have not only been tested but who have tested positive???
A local ER doctor is not an expert on contagious diseases. I too have had similar conversations. I have both an ER doctor and a hospital nurse in my immediate family. But it’s epidemiologists who are the experts in this field and they aren’t making the claims you are. They’re saying that there’s much that we still don’t know and much that we have yet to learn. OTOH, you are claiming from limited anecdotal evidence that we “know” this and we “know” that. Fact is that we don’t know. Not yet. In fact, there have been various reports from around the world of specific incidences of unexpected problems and complications with younger population groups that have to give us pause.
You’re also ignoring the fact that whatever data we do have on college students comes in context. The context is that colleges and universities shut down immediately at the start of this outbreak. Gathering places have also shut down. College students have been social distancing for the past 7 weeks. What we really don’t know is what will happen if we bring college students together in densely packed environments amidst a likely even more severe second surge. It’s not like there’s no risk for this group. Dry tinder. It’s also the fact that severe cases, even if they don’t result in death, essentially result in a lost semester because it’s not only the weeks lost to the illness itself but the 2 weeks of quarantine that follow.
I hope colleges are included in the Co-vid liability protections being proposed by the Senate. There needs to be a safe harbor from lawsuits if colleges and businesses strictly follow government guidelines.
Or fully commuter colleges that have no dorms to worry about. Of course, a college that was heavily distance education to begin with does not need to change much in that area.
Be careful about tracking “new cases”. Testing has been ramping up substantially so number of cases will go up as well. Better to look at Hospitalization rates.
Ok - enough @Bill Marsh . I also know 10 college students who have tested positive. All were either asymptomatic (were tested because of infection in their household) or had basically a bad cold for 4 days. Not sure what data you are seeing that says its a 2 week illness for that age group. Also, the quarantine is not two weeks following… it’s 3 DAYS without symptoms or 7 days since the onset of symptoms (showing how short some of the illness is. Can be only a day or 2). You clearly don’t live in a highly effected area if you don’t know 12 people who have been tested. And PLEASE stop using the phrase “beating a dead horse” - ugh!
I’ll add mono and noro virus to the list of diseases that have gone around the campuses every year.