There could be a 2nd wave. But there are significant costs to social distancing, including significant economic hardship (which kills, too). No easy answers.
Which countries have NOT shut down their universities? I think all of them have including Sweden is that correct?
Yes, Sweden has shut down universities and high school but kept the grade school open. For a fashion magazine, this one is a very well balanced article on the Swedish approach.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/04/can-you-beat-covid-19-without-a-lockdown-sweden-is-trying
This is my very amateurish best case scenario for a semi functional fall quarter. I am assuming there is widespread availability of testing (but not 100 million per week type of coverage) and there are a couple of very effective treatment of COVID-19 (like Remdesivir) .
University can resume normally but large scale function will be curtailed. No sports event. Large lecture will still be temporarily replaced by remote learning. But smaller classes are allowed but with some physical distance between students and instructors. Dinning Halls are opened but students can go there only at staggered periods. Dorm is open but RA have to monitor temperature of students. Everyone may have to wear mask.
Is that the U of C experience parents pay $80,000 per year for? Of course not. But without the COVID-19 vaccine, we all have to deal with the realities. And this isn’t an unique U of C problem. It is the same dilemma every single college, high school and grade school administrator has to face. We all want to get back to normal. But without the vaccine, life cannot get back to normal. In the meantime we all have to adjust and make sacrifice (or at least lower our expectation).
My son is president of his RSO and they are still meeting, though he says attendance is down. For those with students that are looking for things to do, see if their RSOs are still operating remotely or see if they want to fill in their idle time with another. He’s says the experience is obviously different than in person, but there are some benefits to the video conference format that you don’t have in person. He’s in another RSO that has a mentor/mentee component where a 2nd year is assigned a 1st year and a 3rd/ a 2nd etc. He meets weekly or twice weekly with his mentee 1st year and the same with his 3rd year mentor. He says it is helping them just to decompress and cope with the differences. He misses Track practice, but thankfully it is something that you can do by yourself, so he still runs 3-5 miles/day and then does his other workouts.
His biggest issue is that all the internships are drying up. He’s still applying to the ones that pop-up, but is pessimistic. So, he says he’ll study for the LSAT and maybe take a summer course or two. I think kids are a bit more resilient then we sometimes give them credit.
They may be resilient, but it’s their age group that is taking the brunt of the economic downturn. Unemployment is skewed toward the younger ages (as they are the most likely to have jobs that can’t be done through telework) and are junior on the hierarchy once the economic impact starts to work up the economic food chain. Right now it’s a bummer that our kids can’t get internships (my son’s on hold as well) but most of us are probably thinking (hoping) that this is a temporary setback. That might be optimistic thinking. Law firms and other service providers, after furloughing support staff, are now starting to furlough the junior associates. So it’s starting to hit educated elites as well as wage-earners.
We surpassed Great Recession statistics within a month of voluntarily shutting down everything. We are headed rapidly toward Great Depression. By choice. Furthermore, it’s our young people more than we (some of whom are expecting to retire within 10-15 or so years) who will be stuck with the payback for the $2 trillion stimulus.
Not saying this wasn’t necessary for a time. We just have to add up the costs on BOTH sides of our collective decision to shut everything down. My understanding is that the success rate for a Coronavirus vaccine is 0%. So, even as we are learning about promising treatments to reverse the death toll and speed recovery, we have to understand that Covid-19 will be around for awhile.
At some point we are going to have to make the tough decision whether to treat this outbreak as more like a bad cold season or the Plague.
I wonder how many UChicago kids will take the fall quarter off. Or how many admitted students are now taking the gap year option. The number for the latter must be much larger than normal based on students being called off the WL.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/students-now-gap-year-covid-19/story
Do we actually know that more students than usual are being called off the W/L? It does seem that way given when they started (before end of March) but that might be for other reasons as well, especially if they under-admitted in the regular round and are using the w/l round to put on finishing touches.
Not sure that opting for a gap year is a one-way decision; the school can always say “no.” Also, not sure that you can make a decision to gap after committing to enroll, as that young lady in the second article seems to suggest she’s planning to do. You can probably “defer,” but doing so might toss you back into the applicant pool 
Also, anyone offered merit at their college will need to find out what the rules are if they gap. Some schools might re-evaluate the eligibility.
How does that work? Does that mean they graduate a Quarter later? Do the students still get to ‘walk’ the summer before their ‘make=up’ quarter?
In the event Fall is online, taking Fall off, sounds very attractive!
On another note, some schools have already made the decision to move online in Fall.
I wonder if it is too early to make that call?
This may not be the right thread but I find it amusing that Scav this year is a virtual one:
https://news.uchicago.edu/story/after-move-online-scav-hunt-teams-focus-not-whats-lost-found
And incoming students were allowed to participate. This must be the first time.
Is Breckenridge House in I-House?
Yes it is. Named after Sophonisba Breckenridge, one of the founders of SSA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophonisba_Breckinridge
My DD told me there was a team from Washington University that participated in online scav.
^Huh?? They opened it up to other universities?
The more, the merrier 
Maybe we can get MIT and Caltech nerds to join in the virtual Scav next year. Then we shall have the Scavy League in the make in 20 years .
MIT, Caltech, UChicago and Stanford. Add 3 more and you have a Scavy League.