Right now, grocery store workers and prison guards are both working. And both face a risk. But the prison guard’s risk is much, much higher, because the prison guard works in a prison, a place where people live together closely and where infection spreads. When the authorities get around to testing prison populations (including guards) they find huge infection rates, like 50%, 70% of the people they test. Grocery clerks get infected sometimes, and some have died, but they’re not seeing the stratospheric infection rate we’re seeing in prisons.
You’re proposing setting up a living situation that is close living, like a prison. And we can expect covid to spread, like a prison. And we can expect college workers to get infected, like prison guards get infected.
You’re vastly understating the risk you want your professors and college workers to take.
@ny2020ny I just wanted to say, as a rising college sophomore, I agree with you 100%! Parents on this sub may condemn you and call your point-of-view “selfish”, but I call it telling it like it is. Just wanted to let you know that not everyone on this sub thinks that.
@“Cardinal Fang” The difference is college students live in the dorms. Most faculty members and staff aren’t working in the dorms. I’m sure most of the ones who do would rather take the risk than be out of a job.
Most college professors want students to come back next semester, and many colleges will give them the option of teaching from home (Amherst has).
What do we know about colleges that allowed students to stay on campus, either in the United States or in other countries?
There was quite a bit of controversy about Liberty’s decision to allow kids to return to campus, but is seemed that a small percentage of students actually did. Did they allow them to attend “regular” classes, or were they remote learning from their dorms? Any others in the United States?
@dadof2d I think someone said earlier on this thread that Liberty students were still learning remotely even if they returned to their dorms. Also, most colleges allowed students who needed to stay (international students who didn’t want to ask friends in the country to stay with them in their houses, homeless students, students with very immunocompromised family members, and LGBTQ students who were not welcome in their homes) to stay. At least, that is the case with Amherst.
What is the scientific basis for the statement that “It’s not possible. It cannot happen”? It is what Sweden is trying to achieve. They may or may not succeed but the Swedish people and government would not agree that they are trying to achieve the impossible. They do acknowledge that a larger number of people are dying than in some other countries but consider the main problem to be that they initially did not protect care homes as much as they should have done.
The good news is that we should know one way or the other if Sweden has succeeded by the summer since they expect to reach herd immunity in Stockholm “as early as sometime in May” (see https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/05/coronavirus-crisis-sweden-refused-lockdown-other-countries-following/). But whether the US will be able to reach a political consensus to adopt that approach is another matter. Even without the political disputes the US is very different in how people think about death (look at how much of our healthcare spending is related to end of life care compared to other countries).
Thanks @ChemAM . There’s really no good answer. I think people who say “this is the flu!” are idiots and clueless. But I also think life IS about risks. Do we slowly bleed out, going insane with social distancing and ruining MANY, MANY lives in the process? Mental illness, bankruptcy, almost certain economic depression?
Or do we take basic and standard precautions and allow people to determine their personal level of risk? I think the latter. Otherwise we’ll all come out of this penniless, and I don’t know how many additional people will die? We’re a slow burn or a quicker progression.
My grandparents are 78 and over. They are not going out. Until this sucker is under control. But, honestly, this is a situation where we can all somewhat control our personal risk.
We don’t know what the world is going to look like in August. But if I wear masks in certain environments on campus, do not leave campus, and otherwise act like a courteous human being who isn’t trying to infect the world? I should be allowed- with my fellow classmates- to hang out in the common areas with them, respectfully socialize together, etc. The people saying “you can die so I can go to my tailgate” are fear mongerers. This is a very serious disease, primarily because of the contagious nature. People who are dying, when you subtract people over 70 (many in nursing homes), and those with major medical conditions, is a miniscule number. Miniscule. 75 yr old professors aren’t going to be teaching. Diabetic people won’t be working in the cafeterias…
There have been no school shootings in months. What a great way to mitigate risk! Let’s not have school anymore.
I’m not going to change people’s minds. I look at these protests and think those people are insane and selfish. My constitutional right is not to go to school. That’s silly. I don’t have those rights. But I have a sensibility that in somewhat controlled environments (and you CAN create such an environment with testing and some form of soft containment of student movement), people can decide on the amount of risk that is worthwhile to proceed with life. Because this ain’t living. (cue…"it’s better than dying, because that’s the alternative…no. it’s not. at least not to the OVERWHELMING majority of us).
I would. Some personal academics, some social. I struggled to learn remotely the last semester of HS. Maybe a little senioritis, but mostly because I’d be ok for the class but then unmotivated to study at home. I have a routine. I study a little at school, have my out of home activities, and then settle into a home study experience. I had no flow, no routine that allowed me to get away from my books. If we’re online in the fall, it’ll be the same- except college level courses.
Socially, to be able to study in different places…maybe collaborate to some extent with fellow students. It’s a major help. So if professors were online but the experience of campus learning was maintained to a large extent? I’d prefer that. By a lot.
@1NJParent I would still opt to go back to campus in a heartbeat. At least then I could be with other people and my friends, instead of going insane in my parents’ house.
@ChemAM@ny2020ny I can certainly understand home isn’t an ideal setting to take courses from for many students. At least it takes some time to get use to.
@ny2020ny For collaboration with fellow students, have you thought about using Zoom? It isn’t the same as having you and your friends around a big table, but it’s the second best (like online courses) under the circumstances.
They’d better get busy then, because they’re not close. The current estimates say that 70% of a population has to be infected to get herd immunity to covid-19. The population of Sweden is 10 million, so they’d need 7 million people to have been infected. But wait, it gets worse. The sad thing about getting herd immunity by infection is overshoot: you reach the level of immunity that would prevent an outbreak, but you’ve already got an outbreak and people keep getting infected. So in actuality, maybe 8 million Swedes would end up being infected.
Two weeks ago Sweden had 15,000 known cases. Let’s make a heroic assumption that they are only identifying one out of every 40 cases, because many are asymptomatic, so they really had 600,000 cases then. They need thirteen times that many. Those 15,000 identified cases resulted in 2200 deaths so far (I’m assuming here that it takes around two weeks to die).
So assuming they’re doing a terrible job of testing, they’re only 1/13th of the way and almost 30,000 deaths still await them. If they’re doing a decent job of testing and finding 1 in 20 infected people, then 60,000 deaths await them. If they’re doing an excellent job of testing and finding 1 in 10 infected people, they should get ready for 120,000 deaths.
@1NJParent It’s more than “not ideal”. It is absolutely horrible. I don’t care how much improvements they make to the infrastructure, it will still be absolutely horrible taking on a full college course load without friends physically near you.
The problem is that you are not just risking your life but potentially the life of others, that’s the real problem that your actions may cause another to become severely ill or die. I think colleges will do everything in their power to try to eliminate as much risk to their students, faculty, and admins as much as possible while still addressing their “financial” risk of not having students on campus. That’s why a hybrid approach for on campus instructions is being seriously considered.
@socaldad2002 I agree with giving the professors the option of teaching from home; I just think most of them will still opt to go to class. I think the overwhelming majority of people would opt to return to work, and if not, many could work from home. I recognize that there are a handful that could not, and I think the few employees who feel uncomfortable and could not safely return and had a job that absolutely required them to be on campus should have the option of taking a paid furlough instead, and they hire someone else to do that job in the meantime. It’s tough, but this is where we are.
Being with your friends, whether taking classes together or socializing, is the most important consideration for you, am I correct? Are you okay with other constraints that are likely to be in place in the fall (e.g. no non-essential activities outside the campus)?
Do we know how long immunity lasts? Wouldn’t knowing that be imperative to know how likely Sweden is to achieve herd immunity?
@ChemAM Also, I am sorry but taking a full year or more online is not as awful as someone dying. It just isn’t. I understand the mental health toll but unlike Covid19 there are treatments- therapy, medication, yoga, mindfulness, etc that do help many. I suffer from depression as well so not mitigating at all. There are ways to stay in touch with those we love and miss. I keep thinking how much better this has happened in 2020 vs 2002 when the internet was dial-up and facetime wasn’t a thing. Where you had to wait for DVDs from Netflix vs a click of a button. Generations have survived worse than a few online classes from the safety of their home. I think it is seriously doing Generation Z a disservice to act like they cannot weather this. Your generation is much stronger than that.
The needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few. (Old Star Trek reference)
It may be so, but people are so compassionate in general they want it to be ok for everyone. Which is a high ideal but difficult to deliver.
I think colleges would be more than willing to support some at risk or unwilling professors economically to do some research for a period of time, rather than lose an entire semester or more. Economically. And to support their mission to deliver the student’s the best educational experience.