Before local government restrictions on dining in restaurants, dining in restaurants was already crashing. Before local governments restrictions on working non-remotely, some large employers were already telling their employers to “work from home if you can”. Before local government requirements to wear masks in the grocery stores, mask use was already common in grocery stores (though some grocery stores more than others). And even when health care providers are open, many people are afraid to get health care for other than emergencies or COVID-19.
The above indicate that if all additional government restrictions were lifted, many people would still change or limit their activity out of fear of getting the virus, whether or not you personally would.
The chief at my local hospital explained last night that in our area they believe we have just passed our peak. He said more positive cases are being reported because we now have more testing. But they are having less hospital admittance meaning less people need care with Covid19. The doctor stated that they believe there are far more asymptotic cases than first believed.
Purdue Trustees voted today to have students back on campus mid August, but cancelling all Fall breaks, and running in person only until Thanksgiving. After that, which is typically just dead week and finals, they will move online.
Students will also be required to have their flu shots this year.
I think they want to try to get the semester in before a potential second wave.
No fall breaks and eliminating time on campus after Thanksgiving also reduces the number of opportunities for students to go somewhere and bring the virus back to campus.
If final exams are online, would that mean that instructors will have to write open-book exams?
@ucbalumnus - There is speculation on our Purdue parent page that some courses will flip the scheduling for final exams and final projects. They could have finals right before Thanksgiving but then have final projects due afterwards. Generally projects are due before exams but there is no reason why they couldn’t flip flop that. I think because they have a long lead time, profs will get creative on how they will make it work best for students.
My D had her last final yesterday. There was no one way profs did finals but some decided on a projects instead of exams, others made them open book and super hard, others made them very long with limited time so there was no time to look anything up, others allowed calculators when they usually don’t, etc… Overall, it all seemed to work out and she still learned a lot.
@ucbalumnus S19’s math final always was “take home” and now it will literally be at home! Lol. All of his tests in this class were take home and he said each took hours and hours. They weren’t about speed or memorization.
@homerdog. On my son’s finals one problem took 6 hours!! There were several of these problems. He said they were very tough. Maybe it’s because it’s upper level engineering (junior) but they didn’t give them a break at all. Good thing is he did great but really put in the work to get the grade…OHHHH…That’s called being in college…LOL
So to my point also…kids are still learning. Same professors and same teaching techniques. Yes both students and schools need to adjust.
The claim is that getting the flu naturally is better than getting the vaccine because the natural flu infection might provide cross-protection against other viruses (which the vaccine might also provide—we don’t know).
One important thing is that most common colds are caused by rhinoviruses. The four milder coronaviruses (229E, HKU1, NL63, and OC43) are not common. At any given time, they are “detected in 0.3 to 0.85% of samples in all age groups.” The majority are detected in children under aged two.
Because the four milder coronaviruses are rare, age specific, and seasonal, it would be very difficult to accurately study whether people who receive the flu vaccine get them more often. Even if a study was able to adjust for those variables and did show a significant correlation between flu vaccine and minor coronaviruses, that says nothing about the big time coronaviruses (SARS 1, SARS 2 and MERS).
So if “virus interference” is the phenomenon that infection with one virus (temporarily) increases resistance to concurrent infections by the same or other virus, then wouldn’t the anti-vaccine argument against the flu vaccines be that you should not get the vaccine so that you are more likely to get the flu hoping that virus interference will make one better able to resist coronavirus infections?
Even if you accept the somewhat speculative premise, perhaps a safer and less unpleasant way to do this is to get some live virus vaccines like MMR(V), Zostavax (the older less effective shingles vaccine), OPV, or yellow fever, rather than trying to get the (real) flu.
@3SailAway Thank you for the clarification. I was not aware that the study I referenced back in #1229 was floating around on social media; it was just something to consider. Hopefully it is obvious to others that a 2018 study could not have included the current, specific coronavirus at issue.
@ucbalumnus Makes me wonder whether childhood vaccines are providing some protection to the younger age groups, with the protective effect wearing off with age.
^Aside from the BCG for tuberculosis and OPV discussions upthread someplace, I saw some speculation about that, one of MMR, though I can’t find it right now. I’ll try to remember where I saw it…
On the tuberculosis tangent, I saw an international news article with a scary mathematical model (again from Imperial College, so grain of salt) about a large increase in tuberculosis mortality over several years anticipated from the two months of lockdown, due to the treating providers not being able to access the groups of people they usually test/treat (disadvantaged and/or in third world countries).
In the pre-vaccine days, only about 15% of women of childbearing age in the US were seronegative for rubella, meaning about 85% had previous had the actual rubella disease, according to https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/43/Supplement_3/S164/288915 . So, while older people are unlikely to have had rubella vaccine, most of them had the actual rubella and therefore should have antibodies for rubella.
But then the elimination of rubella by vaccine may mean that there is no more wild rubella virus giving “boosters” to those who had the disease or vaccine in childhood.
Adults may want to consider getting an MMR booster for other reasons:
Those who got the measles vaccine before 1968 may have gotten the less effective inactivated virus version.
Those who got the measles vaccine before 1975 may have gotten one based on an uncommon strain that is not as strong a match for most wild measles.
Mumps vaccine immunity apparently fades rapidly enough that adults may no longer be immune from vaccines received in childhood.
Those who do not remember or have records of getting either a vaccine or actual disease for any of measles, mumps, or rubella may not be immune.
Those who do not remember or have records of getting chicken pox (varicella) may want to get the varicella vaccine either by itself or in combination with MMR (the MMRV version).
I am not that old and I certainly had rubella and measles and mumps and obvs chicken pox as the disease. IIRC my sibling was born at home because our household had the measles (1960s). I would have had all routine vaxes as a child.