My school has stopped conducting covid tests.
Only restriction in place is masks in common areas such as hallways. Other than a few students here and there under quarantine, things are pretty normal.
That might not last long. There’s still a slow rise in cases ongoing in a few parts of the country.
Yeah. In fairness. It was mostly just betting big on one vaccine and losing the flip. Plenty of AZ vaccine around but no one under 60 wants it.
Its accelerating now.
55% total pop one dose. 34% 2 doses
It does seem kind of ridiculous to pay $78k/year for room and boarding along with some online courses. Why are the students even on campus at this point?
Additionally, and similar to the Saints situation, we probably wouldn’t know about the majority or maybe any of these cases except for the fact that they were doing mandatory testing of vaccinated people. It just shows we know little about the true rate of the vaccines in preventing cases and transmission, only the rate in preventing asymptomatic cases. Looks like thinking anything other than this virus is going (has gone?) endemic is a pipe dream at this point.
I think we need to be a little cautious. The 99% vax figure seems to come from one email from the uni. Not super official.
I’m bayesing this, and thinking that in the absence of super strong data, many of the cases are either unvaccinated or single dose.
Assuming this is all true as reported, it seemed strange to me, too. What is the point of mandating vaccines, getting to 98-99% vaccinated, and then effectively quarantining people - no in-person classes, no visiting other on-campus students’ rooms, AND no leaving campus?
That being said, they’ve already rolled back a lot of these restrictions. So it appears to be a very short-term response to a big spike in positive test rates:
which makes it seem like a much more reasonable decision.
Of course, the hypothesized source of the outbreak wasn’t actually in-person classes:
On an FAQ page, state Department of Public Health epidemiologists hypothesize that student gatherings at a local bar and in dorm rooms led to “large numbers of people in overcrowded spaces speaking loudly in close proximity. Given that the crowds included symptomatic people, the virus spread to others at a level that overwhelmed the protective capacity of the vaccine.”
It just seems like, over and over again, closures should start with bars and restaurants. But because no one is willing to actually do that, we get these less effective and more costly compensating actions.
I don’t think this is too bad, actually. Conn only has like 1800 students, so we’re talking about 10% of the student population testing positive in a single week.
It seems reasonable to me to lock down pretty hard for a short period under those circumstances. Blanket restrictions are most beneficial when cases are common (because the people being restricted are more likely to be infectious), so it’s logical to rely on low-false-positive, high-false-negative testing-based isolation when cases are low and on ultra-high-false-positive, zero-false-negative lockdowns when cases are high.
It’s also good that they seem to be rolling back restrictions after a week. I think it was @econophile who was saying that they were shutting down school classrooms for 10 days if they had any cases (could have the details wrong there). That seems excessive, but taking a week off when there’s a huge spike is not the end of the world.
Now, if these kinds of spikes end up happening constantly in the Delta era, then maybe it’s time to think about what you’re realistically accomplishing, but it makes sense to be cautious at first and see what that looks like.
I am kind of curious about how these kids are eating. Are they locked down in their dorm rooms all day, then except for mealtimes when they all gather maskless in the cafeteria? I mean, hell, my freshman dorm room didn’t even have a bathroom in it–we had gatherings of like 6 people every morning so people could shower and use the toilet.
Yeah I mean it was a stupid video - you can’t compare total cases from 20+ months of Covid to total breakthrough cases from ~5 months of vaccines being widely available, breakthrough cases are more likely to be asymptomatic and thus less likely to have a positive test associated with them, you can’t make meaningful comparisons between 2020 alpha Covid and 2021 delta, you can’t make meaningful comparisons between vaxxed and unvaxxed groups without accounting for the different compositions of those groups and their relative adherence to other Covid mitigation measures, etc etc etc
But like, she’s right that it’s stupid to act like the vaccines don’t work. And she’s a lady on Tik Tok with an iPad doing a Kornacki thing, not a peer reviewed journal. So whatever.
The earlier story referenced “closed campus spaces” and said this:
Dining services will remain grab and go.
So I assume that there’s no gathering at any cafeteria.
On that note - has there been any research done to try to control for the differences between the vaxxed and unvaxxed population when it comes to things like masking, social distancing, eating indoors, etc? I have to imagine that the vaxxed group is going to be much more cautious in their other daily activities, which might make the vaccines look a bit more effective when looking at population level statistics.
Yeah, I dont have a problem with the protocols but I also know someone who transferred away from that school this year because of COVID protocols (to a school with precautions, but lesser ones) and I cant really blame them either.
I think there will come a point where case outbreaks arent treated with these kind of measures in a vaccinated population, but with community spread still high and hospitals throughout the country overwhelmed containment measures still seem prudent.
I think he said if someone in a class gets COVID the rest of the class goes remote for ten days as everyone is essentially a close contact. That’s in an unvaxxed elementary school population too.
I mean, I’ve been asking that long before the pandemic started.
Can PCR tests come back positive if you merely have some of the virus in your nose/sinuses but are not “infected” as we would commonly understand it?
I’d certainly be paying more attention to hospitalizations/ICU admits than positive tests among the vaccinated.
Relatedly it wouldn’t surprise me if breakthrough cases are more common among teachers who are spending all day indoors with unvaccinated kids
Tuning in to unfunny comedy to pwn teh libs?
He is painfully unfunny. Ive watched his show a couple times and have never laughed once. It makes me genuinely uncomfortable to think that him or people in his orbit consider anything he says or does is funny
I find it hard to believe he isn’t hilarious, let alone anywhere near your description of “painfully unfunny.” I mean I can see the exclamation point right in the title of the show there.
Gutfield!
