One concern I have about my kid going back is she could get sick for weeks and be out of the loop for her studies. Does anyone know what the scoop is for this coming year re terms of tuition insurance (unless underwriten by the school it’s got to be crazy expensive this year or have too many exceptions to coverage)? In this exceptional pandemic situation, has anyone heard anything about schools agreeing to refund tuition in this scenario? I can see the mandatory liberal granting of extensions, but there comes a point where that won’t even help if you get too sick, especially early in the semester.
You can host a 100-person cocktail party in your house? We’re all coming! 
Uhhh… Sorta my point. Sorry, your missing the humor of this. This is a tough crowd. Will have to work on the material… Carry on debating which schools policy is worthy… ?.
No, you were clear. 
"Do what is best for you personally and let others make their own decisions. "
Are you talking about college students in the fall or in general? In general as you know that is an untenable position, as cigarette smoking was banned in bars in CA because the waiters/waitresses complained that the personal decision of a paying customer was a health risk.
Yes!! You get the post… Haha… Lol…
Well if you need video games my son is a manager/player of an internet baseball team They won the world series like 5 times in a row. They actually recruit and trade players and he’s also on the Hall of Fame committee ?. Nice thing is, it’s a great social thing and they just raised over $1500 for a “real” cause. 20 kids on each team and many from the Midwest. They were going to get together and meet at a local place but then CV.
Plus today there will be a social experiment in about an hour. If someone tracks the people there we might see if being close together will actually cause a spread.
NOTE : This was a non political comment and please keep it that way. Just an observation and how it might impact this fall. ?
@“Cardinal Fang” I 100% agree with you. Coaches will continue their tendency to care more about winning than pretty much anything else. I find it interesting that the UCLA players felt emboldened to challenge the system and demand oversight. Wonder what has happened already, or perhaps happened last year, which led to that step. I hope other athletes follow suit.
I understand the concept of externalities, @theloniusmonk. This fall, even at schools which are online only, in my opinion,students should be given the option to room on campus if they wish to do so. The risk is primarily limited to other students on campus, as faculty will be teaching remotely.
At least some of the food service and custodial staff, (with whom undergrads might have contact) are working regardless, since most schools allowed very low income and other special circumstance students to remain on campus, and thousands of graduate students will be back most everywhere as well. So there should be appropriate precautions for staff already in place.
I do not really think the risk to staff increases drastically, from the 5k students Harvard will allow back now this fall, to the 12k if they added in all undergrads. The risk to individual students might increase, but that is their choice.
LSU has at least a quarter of its football players in “quarantine.”
In what sense is this a quarantine?
That sounds like good news/bad news. Good news is that the kids are either asymptotic or mild symptoms. Bad news is that it seems like a good percentage of the athletes are getting this, so it makes you question how the heck it’s supposed to not spread through colleges like crazy when students come back. And regular students probably aren’t as in good physical health as the athletes, so more likely to get sick? At least the profs, admin & support staff are! I see this as an overall not good sign.
We’re on track for new daily highs next week if not today.
And that’s with NYC being down, so this reopening thing is beginning to manifest itself around the country.
You ain’t seen nothing yet.
The virus will be here for the foreseeable future, so it may be best to adapt and learn to live with it for the possibly lengthy time it takes to get a vaccine, if ever. When the subways and commuter trains resume running closer to capacity, cases will spike again.
Looks like today’s the day.
Online learning may be one of such adaptations.
While it will be an individual student’s choice as to how much risk he is willing to assume, what do you see happening if the student who elects to live on campus should test positive?
Will each college have a system in place where they move all infected and exposed suite mates to a quarantine residence or hotel? Will the school provide meals delivered to the door? What happens if the student ends up as one of the unlucky few who experience symptoms worse than the flu? Does the university have a responsibility to check on the medical condition of the student daily? Twice per day? Deliver a pulse oximeter so that the student can keep an eye on his oxygen saturation?
For all we know, colleges may have these plans outlined already, to the extent that they can plan without knowing how many students will be impacted. I don’t expect you or any parent to have answers to this, but these are among the questions I ponder.
I thought there were 33K cases today following yesterday’s total of 35K. There are so many different data sources. Point being, first time since late April with back-to-back new case count of 30K+.
Someone asked what state I am in that is going to phase 3 next week. Sweet Rhode Island. Our cases have come way down. They were quite high, but RI is sandwiched between Boston and NYC, two prior hotspots, and is the 2nd densest state as well as the state with the 2nd oldest population, all tough characteristics during this pandemic. Despite that, I believe our governor has done a great job managing things so far, and has had a pretty cautious reopening with great results in cases decreasing, now 1.8% of tests are positive (RI has the highest testing per capita). So I was surprised to see the large jump in allowable numbers from phase 2 to phase 3, but I think it is in response to some pretty aggressive reopening in neighboring CT and MA (CT is already allowing 250 person weddings for example). Anyway, I’m not even close to suggesting that there should be 100-250 person live classes, but I do think it is an interesting dynamic to have very large, allowable social events throughout the state, but have colleges require singles and clamp down drastically on socializing (I do not know the actual plans for all of the RI colleges). It will be interesting to see this all play out.
@EmptyNestSoon2 – CT has opened ahead of NY or RI, but I don’t believe we are yet allowing groups of 250 to gather. It looks like there will be an exception for fireworks as long as 15 feet of space is allowed between blankets. I will be the first to admit that this one will be a challenge to enforce. Will the towns determine how much sand will be available at the tide time on the day of the fireworks and then limit admission based on that calculation?
From the state’s website: https://portal.ct.gov/DECD/Content/Coronavirus-Business-Recovery/Sector-Rules-and-Certification-for-Reopen
Effective June 17th
Indoor private gatherings – 25 people
Outdoor gatherings – 100 people
Outdoor Event Venues (e.g. Amphitheaters, Race Tracks) - 25% of Fire Capacity and distancing – Consistent with Outdoor Amusement Parks
Effective July 3rd
Indoor private gatherings – 25 people
Outdoor private gatherings – 100 people, one time exception for Graduations @ 150 people
Outdoor organized gatherings (e.g. Fireworks, Concert in Municipal Park) – 15 feet of space blanket to blanket, cap of 500 people. Event organizer responsible for compliance with guidance.
Outdoor Event Venues (e.g. Amphitheaters, Race Tracks) - 25% of Fire Capacity and distancing
I am not sure what percentage of tests are returning as positive. I pulled the daily counts from the past several days and %+ ranged from 1.2% to 1.7%. Would be helpful if I could find this info on a seven day basis.
Re: rules being different on campus versus the surrounding area–at American, they are saying masks must be worn indoors and outdoors on campus (if you can set up a 6 ft perimeter around a bench, I think you can sit outside and study maskless if you want). But pics I have seen of DC recently in a Post article show many people sans masks and not distancing outside, so conceivably my S could not have to wear a mask outdoors on one side of the street, and have to wear one when he crosses to the other side.
Conversely, at his first school, the campus was pretty self-contained, with a gatehouse checking entrances and exits. You could very easily set rules for where to wear masks as well as probably prevent students from leaving the property altogether. Harder to do at American, though we haven’t really gotten info about whether kids are allowed to go home for a weekend during the semester.
At the webinar for parents they did indicate that if DC relaxes and allows more gatherings etc, the school hoped to do the same.
Another thing I have been thinking about: American made the decision to make all rooms on campus singles and even assign students to sinks, toilets and shower stalls in communal bathrooms. Great for freshman and the few other students who get that setup.
But in doing so, they have forced a greater number of students off campus, and with DC rents, the majority of these students now have at least 1 and some as many as 5 roommates. These students will be coming to campus, often on public transportation, and will also likely be out and about in the city to a higher degree. They may or may not be wearing masks or social distancing to the degree mandated on campus.
Wondering if it might have been better to keep more students on campus in doubles with the stricter rules regarding masks, distancing, and dorm visitation than to have more students out in the wild?
AU does have a quarantine dorm set aside, but has indicated it is only for on-campus students who test positive. Some parents of students pushed off-campus are upset by this as they think it should be a service offered to all students. A sick student off campus may not have anyone to bring them food or medicine on a regular basis, and roommates of a positive student will most certainly have to quarantine for a time as well.
My sons were planning to visit friends in Myrtle Beach next week. Not now. They reopened around Memorial Day and here it is three weeks later and they’re closing restaurants again. Based on same timeframe we should know by Labor Day whether opening for fall semester was a good idea or not.
What I would like to hear from schools is what their threshold is for cases before they close-up and send everyone home for the fall semester. Something like “if we see increases in cases for X number of days” or “if we see X number of cases total on campus” or “if the local hospital has X number of beds used, we’ll send kids home” or " we’re not closing shop for any number of cases".