@CardinalFang Exactly! Covid-19 is a respiratory virus. While it can be spread by contact, the chances of that happening are much, much lower than respiratory spread… breathing the same air of an infected person.
The chances of what happened in NYC & New Orleans on that scale again is small. We have learned SO much in the last 6-8 weeks. Think about it. This is a good thing. When this ramped up, hardly anyone was wearing masks, we did not even have enough PPE, and we definitely were not social distancing. We are all already living differently. We can all use hand-washing, masks & social distancing to apply to our daily lives, including schools and be safe.
They can’t do contact tracing in New York. There are way too many cases. But they can do contact tracing elsewhere, and they have. The reports of contact tracing I’ve read haven’t turned up cases of people being infected by touching something infectious.
I’m not sure what’s currently known about infections spreading through nursing homes. It may be that touch is a facto there. I don’t know.
Way back in March, my husband did some simulation and he said that another way of looking at the rate is that if you infected 3 people today, you effectively will kill 1 person in 3 weeks. This is if we had no social distancing.
They do? My daughter had flu twice during the same semester. Diagnosed at the student health center (we were billed for the tests) and she was banned from campus. She lived just off campus with 2 other students (and their boyfriends practically lived there too) and nothing was done to keep them from campus. The school sent out an email that daughter was banned from classes and that was it. No one followed up, no one brought her meals (she had a school meal plan), no one arranged for quarantine hotel rooms or medical care (she had school sponsored medical insurance).
The school did not quarantine her roommates, her athletic team, her lab partners or classmates. When she got flu the first time, her biggest fear was that she was going to die. When she got it the second time, her biggest fear was that she that they wouldn’t let her on the bus to travel to a game and that she’d miss her first start in 4 years. They let her on the bus.
I think this is the right way to run the schools. They should open, they should try to prevent the covid germs (cleaning railings and desks and allowing for social distancing) but when the students or staff get sick, and they will get sick, the student should be responsible for his own care. If he needs to go to the doctor, he goes. If he needs to be quarantined in a hotel, he should be but the cost is up to the student. If he misses classes he needs to figure out a way to catch up (watch online if available, get the notes, take an incomplete). If the school needs to charge more for single rooms or smaller class sizes, they should. We are all paying more for services now.
Returning to schools is risky and the student has to decide if he wants that risk. It’s like going into flu season without a flu shot, or not having a measles vaccination. This is a highly contagious disease. We’re better at treatment, but some who get it will be very sick (same with measles, flu, mumps).
I did that same simulation at the time, with the same conclusion. I now have a better understanding of the variance of that number. The variance is very big! I might be killing nobody, but if I or someone I infected was a superspreader, in three weeks 50 people in my infection chain might be on their way to dying.
On average, though, one person (or something like that) would die from the first three weeks of my infection chain. That’s a lot.
^^ Yep, I hope that brings the point home to some people. We are uncomfortable of being accused of willfully killing anyone, but at the end of the day, that’s what it boils down to.
Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz shares that the University will make an announcement soon regarding the plan for returning to full on-campus operations later this summer.
@shuttlebus So, does that mean the number of required courses for all students to graduate will be reduced from 32 to 30 for students attending Williams in the upcoming year?
Sure they can. You can’t necessarily use it to “reverse engineer” how you got the virus - which is what you are talking about - (and, kind of futile, imo) but it’s a useful tool to get your arm around an outbreak.
Our kids are way more likely to get killed crossing the street than from C-19.
The question to me is finding ways to best protect the vulnerable population as we begin to reopen, and how to mitigate/lessen transmission, while scientists continue to work on a vaccine.
I haven’t heard one college say that it’s going to be business as usual in the Fall.
“There will be no face-to-face lectures at the University of Cambridge over the course of the next academic year due to coronavirus, it has been announced.”
BC sent out a note, but it didn’t say much. It just pretty much reiterated what they have been saying all along.
"Our intent is to open for on-campus classes as scheduled on August 31. The steps required for resuming in-class instruction will occur in phases this summer, according to guidelines developed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Having as many as 400 students on campus after March 15 has provided valuable lessons about how to implement physical distancing and food distribution protocols in dining facilities, increase sanitizing for buildings (particularly residence halls), and use technology for meetings and events. In addition, University Health Services has developed testing and isolation procedures in response to COVID-19, and administrators and others will keep refining necessary plans and policies for the resumption of campus life"
However, lectures will be available to students online and “it may be possible to host smaller teaching groups in person” if they meet social distancing requirements, the university said.
University campuses have been closed this term by the Covid-19 outbreak.
Cambridge will review the decision if advice on social distancing changes.
A statement from it read: "The university is constantly adapting to changing advice as it emerges during this pandemic.
"Given that it is likely that social distancing will continue to be required, the university has decided there will be no face-to-face lectures during the next academic year.
**"Lectures will continue to be made available online and it may be possible to host smaller teaching groups in person, as long as this conforms to social distancing requirements. **
“This decision has been taken now to facilitate planning, but as ever, will be reviewed should there be changes to official advice on coronavirus.”
It follows a similar move by the University of Manchester, which said its lectures would be online-only for the next term.
Earlier this week, the university watchdog said students applying for university places in England must be told with “absolute clarity” how courses will be taught - before they make choices for the autumn.
Universities can charge full fees even if courses are taught online.
But Nicola Dandridge of the Office for Students warned against misleading promises about a "campus experience" if courses are to be taught online.
Apparently, British students haven’t made choices on colleges yet, so they are providing this clarity so it can be factored in.
@twoinanddone that just stratifies the rich kids from the poor again. My kid couldn’t go back to school with the threat of the cost of a hotel stay and food during a quarantine on her head, and neither could any of the other low income students. I seriously doubt that is what colleges want to project to the world.
A nursing home is a high density living environment, similar in many ways to a college dorm. In addition to residents’ contact with each other in the dining hall and other social situations, they also have contact with those assisting them with health care needs.