Morality?
https://www.microcovid.org/ suggests that outdoors is 1/20 the risk of a typical indoor location. From that site (lower risk multiplier is better; <1 reduces risk versus baseline):
| Risk multiplier | Situation |
|---|---|
| 1.00 | Your vaccine: none |
| 0.76 | Your vaccine: Pfizer or Moderna x1 |
| 0.17 | Your vaccine: Pfizer or Moderna x2 |
| 0.36 | Your vaccine: J&J x1 |
| 1.00 | Indoor |
| 0.05 | Outdoor |
| 0.25 | Indoor with HEPA filter with flow rate 5x room size |
| 1.00 | Your mask: none or thin / loose cloth mask |
| 0.67 | Your mask: cloth, thick and snug |
| 0.50 | Your mask: surgical |
| 1.00 | Their mask: none |
| 0.50 | Their mask: thin / loose cloth |
| 0.33 | Their mask: cloth, thick and snug |
| 0.25 | Their mask: surgical |
| 15 | They go to bars (roughly equivalent to indoor college parties with alcohol) versus average person in Georgia |
https://www.microcovid.org/?distance=sixFt&duration=55&interaction=oneTime&personCount=10&riskProfile=bars&scenarioName=custom&setting=indoor&theirMask=thin&topLocation=US_13&voice=normal&yourMask=surgical&yourVaccineDoses=2&yourVaccineType=pfizer is an estimate of risk to the instructor for a 55 minute indoor class with 10 students between 2 and 5 meters away, instructor Pfizer vaccinated with a surgical mask, students with unknown vaccination status, thin / loose cloth masks (assuming that at least some students use lower quality masks), and tendency to go to college parties (equivalent to bars), but not known to have COVID-19. The calculator then gives about a 0.7% chance of catching COVID-19 each class session. Without masks on the students, risk rises to about 1% per class session. With (lower quality) masks on the students, if one of the students is known to have COVID-19, risk rises to about 3% for the class session.
Holding the class session outdoors would reduce risk to about 0.04% per class session (or 0.1% even if one of the students is known to have COVID-19).
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The original post deals with a specific situation, and itās just unfortunate in so many ways.
I have mentioned my kidās sports training for a couple of reasons: it is a direct experience; there is a class-sized group of young athletes working out in close proximity a large degree of the time; they are a diverse lot of individuals. Due to the ages and other medical concerns, not everyone is vaccinated. The training is a fairly homogenous bubble, but competitions have ramped up again so travel has been happening (there has been testing happening, though).
For what itās worth, my kidās experience has been the following: everyone has been courteous and respectful of others. There has been restraint in judgement, not everyone has been asking about vaccination status (although the coaches are generally appraised), and testing has been happening depending on travels. Still, once athletes are not training, who know what they are doing.
To be in an environment where health is a serious concern (if you test positive, you canāt compete), and most of the coaches are not all that young, everyone has been incredibly respectful of others and been able to be positive and supportive. Itās been very insightful.
Is it an indoor or outdoor sport?
It is indoor with lots of close contact, so safety concerns are taken seriously (miss competitions and you can easily lose international ranking). Also, in several sports in general, āold timersā are valued for their coaching expertise - so many young athletes are very grateful to have the wisdom from the king on the court (much like the sage on the stage).
The sport experience was in direct contrast to the school experience (and, of course, everyoneās past year-and-a-half was different). From March 2020 to June 2020, our district had kids stay home and froze marks. Donāt know how many students just stopped school work for almost six months. Our kid had less than five hours of official class time total in that time. Still completed every assignment.
Last year was entirely remote with Zoom lessons. Some teachers were very hard to reach for office hours, even with remote video. The one class that was tremendously engaging each semester was the college dual enrollment one. Teacher was available 3-4 times per week (2 classes, 2, sometimes three, scheduled office hour sessions). The shorter times with immediate feedback made the remote learning work. At the high school level, not quite the same experience.
When sport was off the table, the focus was on academics. As sport got back on track, there was a real effort for everyone to pull together despite different circumstances (in various facilities weāve been at). The focus was on practical training matters, and not so much on philosophies. Whatever the coaches are thinking, the athletes often donāt know. In this particular facility my kid is at, the bulk of the coaches grew up and trained elsewhere, but have lived and taught in the U.S. for many years.
Sad.
I cannot believe what some posters have written here. My kidās public school district reopened last fall with universal masking rules, and everyone (except one idiot teacher who eventually got Covid, but not contracted in school) complied. Kid said ALL the students in the high school wore their masks properly. There was ZERO transmission in the school buildings. ZERO. He said he got used to wearing his KN95 mask, said he forgot he had it on.
The studentās refusal to wear a mask endangered everyone else in that room, and she knew it, and didnāt care. Surely an 88 year old professor came back out of retirement out of a sense of duty to train the next generation, not out of any financial need. Her refusal to wear a mask was akin to spitting in his face, and in the face of every other student in that classroom, and I cannot blame him for leaving.
I DO blame the governor for catering to his ignorant base, and blocking the schoolās ability to mandate a necessary and effective public health measure, namely, mandatory mask-wearing in indoor public spaces.
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SF Brother
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FWIW, one thing I forgot to mention.
My D21, as a high school senior last year, competed with her mask on, as did the entire HS league. Indoor sport. League rules.
Not one person in any HS in that particular league sport got Covid. There were no exceptions made for masking while training or playing games.
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My only hope is Darwinism:
eventually those who refuse vaccines, who also will likely refuse to reduce risk for others by wearing a surgical mask for an hour, will over time over-proportionally reduce their own ranks.
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Iām wondering if UGA had a policy that allowed professors āclassroom rulesā to override UGAās campus mask policy (or lack thereof)? The studentās antics were snotty and entitled but within her rights per UGAās policy (I donāt agree with what she did, so donāt @ me). Iām guessing a least some students chose UGA based in part on not having a mask mandate - as I know of several students who chose other (mostly southern) universities because they wouldnāt be forced to get the vaccine or wear masks.
Reading the article in the OP, it appears that the UGA professor was having second thoughts before this incident. He could have merely upheld his classroom rule and had her removed from the seminar (thatās why Iām wondering if UGA would have supported him in that) but he must have been pretty anxious about his decision to let one studentās non-compliance immediately drive him back into retirement. I donāt blame him, of course, and given his age and health, think it was a pretty bad decision (selfless or not) for him to potentially expose himself to the virus on a large, crowded campus with no mask or vaccine mandate. If exposure didnāt happen in his classroom, it could happen in 100 other places on campus.
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Not all professors are elderly for heavenās sake. and some younger professors (like my own kid) have significant health issues that make them vulnerable to COVID.
I donāt even want to comment on some of these posts. This is emotional for me. My kid needs to live but also needs a job for which they have trained for 12 years now.
The union is organizing at my kidās school. My kid is scheduled to teach 200-300 students indoors at one time. They are getting doctors involved ahead of time to be able to switch to remote.
The larger issue here is the misery of professors and students alike when zoom life continues.
If everyone got vaccinated and wore a mask, maybe in-person could reliably return.
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Of course, if college students did not frequently go to indoor drinking parties, that may have an even bigger effect on virus spread among themselves and to others (faculty and staff) they may come in contact with.
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My daughter goes to Clemson, no vaccination mandate. The governor said masks couldnāt be mandated. I believe that was overruled, staff threatened a walkout if masks werenāt worn, now masks are mandatory in classrooms (thank goodness). Since all students are tested every week (and before coming on campus), I sadly expect things to go bad (the closest hospital has patients lining the hallways, and visitors are no longer allowed).
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Actually, a prof at U of SC sued and the Supreme Court ruled in his favor, striking down the no mask rule. Immediately after the three big schools - U of SC, Clemson, and College of Charlestonā¦all implemented mandates.
USC can require masks on campus, SC supreme court rules | The State
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The University of Georgia system has declared that there canāt be a mask mandate. This was his rule and, other than this student, everyone in the class agreed to comply. Iām guessing he already knew that the department and school ultimately wouldnāt support his classroom rule so it was up to the students to adhere to it, and when one didnāt (after being asked multiple times), that was it.
We could argue that he shouldnāt have agreed to teach in person during a pandemic, but he was probably doing it out of a sense of service to the department and the students.
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That may be - but even so, probably not the best decision given the aggressiveness of Delta and the lack of support at UGA (as well as his pre-existing health). If he were my father there would most definitely have been a Come-to-Jesus conversation about whether this was a logical decision. And as the article implies, he already had concerns about his decision prior to the altercation with the student.
I wonder how he moved around the campus area outside of his classroom, where he was very likely to come into contact with many unmasked students? Also wonder whether the seminar could have been conducted virtually, as most colleges have given their professors that option. Did UGA mandate 100% in-person classes, no exceptions?
Again - I agree that the student should have complied with his mask request or drop the class if she couldnāt bring herself to do it. Itās not a big ask.
I get it. Iāve been teaching fully online since last year. Thereās no way I would have trusted my health to a bunch of college students and I certainly didnāt want to police them.
I just want to say that course assignments are done months in advance, in this case before the Delta variant took hold of everything and we were all feeling pretty good about vaccines. Delta was probably why he was feeling a renewed sense of concern.
And, I donāt actually know that most colleges have given professors the option to teach virtually. At my school, professors donāt always have that option. Arrangements might have been made, but maybe not. He may not want to have taught via Zoom regardless, either because of his own technology preferences or because he (and/or the department) feels this seminar is best run in-person.
We are in agreement that this one student ruined it for everyone.
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He probably agreed to teach the class some time ago, when COVID-19 infections/hospitalizations/deaths were lower, before the Delta variant showed up. Just a few months ago, people were optimistic that vaccines would basically let people who chose vaccination to opt-out of the pandemic, based on the low rate of breakthrough infections by the variants at the time.
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Were the athletes tested for Covid on a regular basis? If not, they could have been asymptomatic I would think?
Glad to hear about this in any case!