If your school is not doing massive, weekly testing, you're destined for online learning.

[Anonymous]

Worth a read if you are currently packing your kids things to send them to school.

https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2020/08/18/school-of-public-health-study-says-students-may-be-able-to-safely-return-to-campus/

Yale Daily News article is rather strong on the value of QUANTITY over QUALITY in testing. Basically schools like Notre Dame were destined to fail with a limited testing system of only symptomatic patients being allowed tests after they arrived (yes, everyone got one coming in, but that should have continued every week). Schools like the University of Illinois have set up a massive, twice a week saliva-based testing system (that they created in house and will test at the schools veterinary clinic laboratory). They might have a better shot: https://abc7chicago.com/university-of-illinois-urbana-champaign-coronavirus-test-covid-19-testing/6350622/

Yale Daily News:

"Paltiel explained that a 70 percent sensitive test — a test that catches when someone is infected with COVID-19 70 percent of the time — administered each day will catch 100 cases after about three to four days, whereas a 95 percent sensitive test that schools can only afford to administer once per week will take nearly twice as long to catch the cases...

Above all, the researchers found that universities could not prevent an outbreak with symptom-based testing alone; they must also screen asymptomatic students. Paltiel likened the approach of testing only students exhibiting symptoms to “bringing a condom to a baby shower.” In the study’s computer simulation relying only on symptom-based testing, by the close of the 80-day semester, the cohort had been overrun with 4970 total infections out of a population of 5000 students. By contrast, screening asymptomatic students every two days resulted in 243 cumulative infections."

[Anonymous]

Most schools cannot afford weekly testing, and those schools should be all remote but they're not yet.

[Anonymous]

I think the worse are those who only screen symptomatic students!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the worse are those who only screen symptomatic students!

Yes. And the ones who are testing before arrival or just once or twice at the beginning of the semester are playing with fire too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most schools cannot afford weekly testing, and those schools should be all remote but they're not yet.

Weekly isn't enough and it isn't that expensive. Make students who want to live on campus pay for half and waive that for students with X level of financial aid.

To free up money the colleges could stop with the obsessive surface cleaning, which is also expensive. It's a respiratory virus, not one that spreads through surfaces.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most schools cannot afford weekly testing, and those schools should be all remote but they're not yet.

Weekly isn't enough and it isn't that expensive. Make students who want to live on campus pay for half and waive that for students with X level of financial aid.

To free up money the colleges could stop with the obsessive surface cleaning, which is also expensive. It's a respiratory virus, not one that spreads through surfaces.

I agree.

[Anonymous]

Cornell is doing the same as Illinois. 2x week testing for all undergrads being processed at the Veterinary school lab on campus.

[Anonymous]

Hoping the quick new inexpensive saliva tests can be rolled out soon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most schools cannot afford weekly testing, and those schools should be all remote but they're not yet.

Weekly isn't enough and it isn't that expensive. Make students who want to live on campus pay for half and waive that for students with X level of financial aid.

To free up money the colleges could stop with the obsessive surface cleaning, which is also expensive. It's a respiratory virus, not one that spreads through surfaces.

Tell that to New Zealand.

[Anonymous]

The University of Illinois tested 10,000 students on Monday alone, with a positivity rate this week of 0.3 to 0.5 (the DMV is about 3.0 - 5.0 in comparison)

[Anonymous]

Students as guinea pigs -- but I guess we'll learn a lot about how to monitor and contain the virus from the experience of various campuses this fall!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The University of Illinois tested 10,000 students on Monday alone, with a positivity rate this week of 0.3 to 0.5 (the DMV is about 3.0 - 5.0 in comparison)

That sounds like a low positivity rate but ..... that still means 30-50 positive students with each requiring isolation, contact tracing/quarantine of close contacts.

If the results are similar each day of testing, the positives in one week can quickly number in the hundreds all needing isolation/quarantine. Logistically daunting. But massive testing is the only way to keep from getting exponential spread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The University of Illinois tested 10,000 students on Monday alone, with a positivity rate this week of 0.3 to 0.5 (the DMV is about 3.0 - 5.0 in comparison)

That sounds like a low positivity rate but ..... that still means 30-50 positive students with each requiring isolation, contact tracing/quarantine of close contacts.

If the results are similar each day of testing, the positives in one week can quickly number in the hundreds all needing isolation/quarantine. Logistically daunting. But massive testing is the only way to keep from getting exponential spread.

The university is testing asymptomatic and symptomatic, DMV labs are mostly still testing symptomatic, though more asymptomatic these days (to get to college/travel/visit family) Hence 0.5% vs 5%.

[Anonymous]

Oberlin is apparently doing surveillance testing of 25% of students each week -- I'll believe it when I see it (and I already paid $500 for testing)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oberlin is apparently doing surveillance testing of 25% of students each week -- I'll believe it when I see it (and I already paid $500 for testing)

That is a very low testing rate for surveillance testing -- each student tested once per month. Cornell is dong 2x per week testing for all undergrads (at least initially).