School in the 2020-2021 Academic Year & Coronavirus (Part 1)

Parents Forum
4082

No health expert is ignoring flu deaths, and I’m surprised you think anyone is.

You may not have heard about the wealth of research around the world into the flu and its containment. You may not have heard about annual efforts to isolate the worst strains and to develop vaccines for them, and public health efforts to distribute them.

But that doesn’t mean they don’t happen.

PS. The biggest difference between the flu and covid (besides the infection and death rate, small differences, right?) is a VACCINE.

We have them for the former, and not the latter. And therein lies the crux of the problem.

4083

The flu vaccine is a guess of which strains they think will be prevalent that year. They’re often wrong. Sometimes very wrong. You might get some protection because the strains are similar but no guarantees. It’s better than no vaccine but it’s not a cure-all.

4084

I answered that in #4052.

4085

I wrote that, not fretful mother. There have been posts that seemed to forget how many flu infections and deaths there are every year, and that suggest colleges have no experience in managing deadly infections.

While yes there are flu vaccines, many years there is a mismatch of strains due to genetic drift, so often they aren’t highly effective. On top of that, less than half of people get the vaccine, and the result is…tens of millions of people infected every year, just in the US.

Again, my point was colleges have experience dealing with deadly infectious diseases from caring for students with the flu, to cleaning their facilities. CDC’s cleaning recommendations for covid-19 are very similar to those for flu season.

I stand by my statement that some people have normalized flu deaths, just IMO, obviously. YMMV.

4086

See #4071. Also, keep in mind that what you’re saying here amounts to “we’ve agreed to kill some people with flu through non-vax and lack of public-health hygiene so we can go to the mall, so it should be okay with Covid, too.”

If you ask me, that’s driving public health in the wrong direction.

4087

Please don’t put words in my mouth. That is absolutely not what I said.

4088

True. But the existence of even this imperfect vaccine puts the flu in a very different category from Covid. To pretend otherwise is to ignore a huge body of knowledge, and an enormous annual public health effort to battle the flu.

4089

NYU Plans to be in Person for Fall.
https://nyulocal.com/nyu-plans-to-resume-in-person-classes-for-fall-semester-73550208a6e4

4090

What @tuckethannock appears to be saying is that we need to hunker down, adapt for the intermediate term and be weary of a return to normal too quickly.

By doing differently than or by returning to normal (i.e. return to college campuses this August) , we are very likely risking a portion of society’s lives and in fact ‘killing’ people. In our analysis of this she’d ask that we think about who these people are and what their names are that would be sacrificed for our premature and selfish return to ‘normal’.

I would ask her what are her medical credentials to backup this viewpoint?

4091

Even if the stadiums are empty, you still have the players, the coaches, the trainers, the announcers, the TV crew, and possibly accompanying student groups like cheerleaders and the marching band. (Do you tell those groups they are less important than the football team and just cancel their seasons? If not how do you deal with the air and spit involved in the wind instruments in the marching band? How do you social distance the cheerleaders making their pyramids? And why have band and cheerleaders if the stadiums are empty?)

Then you are putting all those kids and staff on a bus, way closer than 6 feet apart, and schlepping them between schools …so even if you’ve done a great job keeping the virus out of your campus, you’re now sending groups of students back and forth to other campuses. And those students come back and interact not just with their teammates, but with the kids in their classes and dorms and dining halls. And share the same weight rooms and practice facilities and athletic trainers with other sports teams on their campus. And even if you facemask the helmets or whatever was suggested above, they’re still all touching the same ball during the game. And football players spend lots of time in training activities where they don’t wear helmets - meetings, locker rooms, weight rooms, etc. I know there are millions of dollars at stake but I just don’t see how a college can say this is a safe thing to do.

4092

Oh, apologies to fretulmother and Mfan1921. And yes, I would agree that “SOME” people normalized flu deaths. Many others have no clue about efforts to lower those numbers. And others still don’t give a hoot one way or another. Society is made up of many types of people.

4093

@chmcnm , yes a vaccine may take years–or may never become available. As better treatments become available, testing and contact tracing become widely available, etc., new options will open up.

My point stands, though: Our options are only as good as the choices available in the marketplace.

Going back to college like it’s 2019 isn’t on the table. So within the scope of available options, it’s not clear to me that any and all in-person solutions being proposed (masks, social distancing, no large[r] gatherings, to-go only meals at scheduled times, not being able to leave the surrounding area of campus, one-way only walkways, etc., etc.) are ipso facto superior to distance learning solutions.

Again, we all agree that none of these options are ideal, but to my way of thinking, the in-person option as it would be implemented isn’t buying students very much–and still isn’t “worth” the price in the sense that it isn’t what we thought/hoped we would be getting. With online classes–which my D’s HS has been doing with a fair degree of efficacy–she can continue learning and will have to accept that the social and in-person experience this fall wouldn’t have met expectations, so why not be comfortable at home with family and HS friends in the same boat?

Believe me, I want a return to campus as much as the next person. I’m just skeptical that the in-person solutions being put forth by colleges (see letters/statements from Stanford, Amherst, Columbia, MIT and Princeton to name a few) will make for a qualitatively better experience.

And one last point, I think colleges have more power than we want to admit, even in the COVID era. Yeah, we can withdraw or defer or ask for discounts, but ultimately, if we want our kids to have a college degree, this is the climate we’re living in. We have to take it or leave it.

In the end, I’ll take it.

4094

^^^^^NYU is the very antithesis of Yale - no campus; people are already accustomed to viewing their professors on monitors; basically, a hands-off approach to how students navigate their lives outside the classroom. And, I hate to say this, compared to what the rest of New York City has gone through, a hundred students testing positive for the virus would scarcely cause a ripple.

4095

I don’t have time to dig up all of the data on how deadly the virus is or who it is more likely to kill. And I know many of you are in NYC and have seen the devastation with your own eyes. The truth is, though, that some very low percent (we don’t know the exact percent yet) actually die from the virus. In Chicago, a giant “hospital” was set up in our convention center and never used. Those of you who say we need to shelter in place until who knows when are exaggerating the likelihood of dying from this virus. You’re making it seem like, if there’s one case on a campus, the whole student body (and the faculty and the people who live near the college) will be attached to ventilators. This is not the case. Now, if someone is older or immune compromised, we need to protect them but that does not mean staying in our houses or not sending our kids to school. It means doing the things we can to keep the virus from spreading - masks, social distancing, etc. And it also means (unfortunately) that those people should probably be even more careful. I’m lecturing my parents about that who live in Florida. Dad, you do NOT need to go to Home Depot to “look around” because you are bored!

Will students be perfect? No way. They will take their masks off in the dorms and hang with friends but likely only in smaller groups since larger groups won’t be allowed and the RAs will put a stop to that. They will have to follow the rules to go to class, to the cafeteria, to any building on campus. If clubs have meetings, the kids will be in masks.

Every little change can help prevent the spread. No one is saying these kids will be in masks 24/7. What’s the saying? Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good? We have to try something. Some people will try to shop in their local town. Some will venture out to a restaurant and eat on an outside patio they’ve set up. And a lot of people are going to send their kids to school, both K-12 and college, with as many rules as are feasible.

4096

NYU’s plan seems to be driven mostly by financial considerations. I don’t see how it can anticipate opening its NYC campuses at this time. It’s telling its large Chinese student population that they can study on its Shanghai campus and still receive the same diplomas as if they had come to its NYC campuses.

4097

@tuckethannock , you’re being disingenuous.

Society appears to have agreed whereabouts to draw the line, as far as regular seasonal flu and other diseases we know well ade concerned, in the trade off that always exists between “life going on as normal” (whatever that is) and “effectI’ve public health measures that hurt”. Schools are rarely closed, vaccinations are rarely enforced, most vaccinations ar rigidly tested (I remember getting a shot for the swine flu when pregnant the safety of which was iffy, but it was recommended nonetheless for my situation).

That is not the same as “agreeing to kill people”. Life isn’t risk free. As long as flu death rates do not rise over more than a certain fraction of a percentage, yes, society has normalised that risk, the vaccination is not effective enough to actually shield high risk groups from it, it is hit and miss and even if it’s hit, it is inferno merely mitigating the illness, not preventing it. We accept that.

I believe Asian societies have a lower tolerance for flu deaths which is why masks have bee more prevalent for years.

Yes, Covid is different. But societies who made a huge containment effort in the beginning and were lucky in their timing still have had fewer deaths than they have from seasonal flu. Take South Korea. They have taken the risks of opening up their entertainment district, and the risk of an an outbreak has materialised, Some people will die, but I assume they will get it under control, and they will open up again.

Yes, we know much less about Covid than we know about the flu. But that means it’s more of a gamble. It doesn’t change the stakes.

When some leaders were told without lockdowns, they would have to accept deaths in the millions, they ordered lockdowns. Bolsonaro did you, and his government is falling apart. The US, the UK, Sweden, have very different policies, but still Appear ready to accept more deaths than Germany, Denmark and South Korea.

If people were told “go back on campus and deaths in the US will be int the millionS”, they probably wouldn’t. But another 50.000 or so, for the fall and winter of 2020/21? With the hope it can be contained at that level with testing, tracing and ultimately a vaccine? They accept it for the flu, they will accept it for Covid.

People will say ”they can always close down at thanksgiving and take an online break till March” and take the risk.

4098

However, there is some research suggesting that SARS-CoV-2 spreads less in warm weather, which could lead to a reduction in cases and deaths in the summer, which could make people feel more confident that it has been “beaten”. But then it can come back with a vengeance later in the year when the weather cools but people have become more lax about habits to reduce spreading.

Perhaps if enough residential college students variolate with SARS-CoV-2 this summer (during the probable summertime lull in cases, so hospitals will have space if they need medical help, and they will be near their “home” hospitals and physicians), they may then have the wished-for “herd immunity” as they move into their dorms this fall. However, that would have the problem in that there is still some risk of death or long term injury, even though it is much lower for most college students than for the general population. So it is unlikely that many will actually do that, except perhaps a few who believe that getting COVID-19 before a vaccine is available is inevitable, so they may as well “schedule” it rather than perhaps get it at an inconvenient time and place.

4099

My college son recently told me this quote, which might be apt here:

“One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic”

                       -- attributed to Joseph Stalin
4100

More news from Williams…
"In terms of the model, for 2020-21 only we’ll continue with two semesters as usual, but will reduce the minimum number of required courses per semester from four to three and will cancel Winter Study for January 2021. These changes will maximize flexibility for students and limit the amount of time people are required to spend on campus, independently of whether we convene in person or work remotely. "

4101

I have to agree with @GMgiant here – @tuckethannock, you seem to think that colleges cannot adapt their structures and workplaces to sufficiently address the current challenge.

This thread has been round and round on this, but ALL businesses are in the process of revamping to adapt to COVID. Does this mean more employees will WFH home more frequently, yes it does. Will they need to build in more defined workspaces, more health protocols, and other precautions – again, yes. Should some types of work continue to be one remotely? Yes.

But I think very few business are planning to ONLY be work from home (the equivalent of college being online) until there’s a vaccine. Colleges and universities, while they have some unique characteristics and greater challenges during COVID, are also businesses. I believe through creative thinking, planning and new ways of structuring learning experiences and residential life, including more online components, colleges too can re-open. They also will have new structures and systems in place to help safeguard everyone’s health.

Some students won’t like the new environment and walk away. Some faculty and staff likewise.

Colleges have to adapt or many will never recover. Inside Higher Ed posted a survey today saying 1/3 of students won’t return if it’s online only. Ohio University and Morehouse are the latest to announce layoffs.

If you as an adjunct/faculty don’t feel safe, please raise your concerns with your employer, and I hope they will work with you to find accommodations that will work.

Please stop demonizing folks here and saying we’re basically “agreeing to kill people.” It’s not helpful, accurate or becoming.