I don’t think it’s the best approach, but much depends on the schools resources, staffing, and other capabilities. I have a college freshman attending a top university. The school has a fairly straightforward protocol that makes sense. First week of spring semester is remote classes because this gives the school time to execute the process. All students must take a Covid test upon return to campus in order for their cards to work (cards provide access to dorms, buildings, meals, basically everything). Until their test results are known (probably 2 days), they must stay in dorms except for meals and other necessary things. Once they test negative, they are free to resume whatever. If they test positive, they’ll be quarantined in a separate place as per CDC guidelines. Basically, the university will create what amounts to be a bubble within a relatively short period of time upon restart of spring semester. I expect that their surveillance testing program will pop positives more than last semester, which was basically negligible incidence of Covid (after O week). But it should be manageable and hopefully Omicron will peak and then fizzle out sooner rather than later.
Dang, hopefully it remains mild and you'll all come out stronger from it. That sounds a lot like the NBA bubble. Will be interesting to see how that progresses. I don't envy the school planners job to balance risk versus quality of living/learning issues. Ten students dying from covid during the year out of 10-50k attending students may be one too many and it's one of those areas where it's no one or groups decision to make. I could imagine the liability for that kind of tragedy be nothing a hundred years ago versus the amount of information we all wield today. There'd likely be no refunds and the richer parents would yank them out for home schooling and mail in assignments. Strange times we live in.
The school has departments on the forefront of Covid research and analysis, so I am sure they are working with the best information possible. I neglected to mention that they are requiring boosters (as many private colleges are) and the vax rate among students, faculty and staff os incredibly high. It’s a careful balancing between safeguarding against serious illness or death, and the importance of interpersonal engagement as an integral part of the college experience. They have allowed attendance at sporting events with proof of vax, but also encouraged outdoor dining by establishing more tented seating areas. On balance, I think the administration knows that the health risk to young vaccinated population is fairly low, and what they are trying to do is to avoid cratering their quarantine system, which presumably has limits. as you might imagine, there are parent opinions across the board, but mostly educated ones.
It took me 5 days to recover from covid fever, weakness, chills, painful headaches. Now my 18 year old is experiencing the same symptoms and he's also vax. He has to leave early jan to be back to his boston college. This **** is going to triple now when school resumes. My 9 year old is perfectly fine. My sisters kids ages 5-12 are having symptoms
I haven't been sick in 2+ years besides (i think) a cold I had for 24-36 hours. I have been curious for a while now if I have had this yet though then or otherwise. Never know i guess.
I think commodore isn't a huge waste of time. He delivers bad/false information constantly that you learn to distrust and not believe everything he posts. Makes it very simple.
As I noted in the Hangout thread I was negative on my last mandated test here in Singapore. For the past two weeks I've gone 0-11 on COVID tests. I've been following the mask rules here in Singapore and was also wearing a masks out in public in Amsterdam and the last week I was in the US. I think the biggest factor in not testing positive even though I've had a lot of exposure while traveling and found out had been exposed to someone who likely was positive back in the US right before I left is that I've had the booster. While mask though are very far from a guarantee that you won't get or transmit COVID there is plenty of evidence that they helped. I think one of the reasons why many Asian countries including Singapore has had very low numbers even prior to the availability of vaccines is that there already was a preexisting culture to mask up when sick.
Someone wiser than myself said something which applies to those that are anti-vax, anti-mask... They don't trust anyone, but will believe anything.
