Anonymous wrote:I irk for a college and I can tell you that most are considering a hybrid (1/2 at home, 1/2 at school bc NO school has the space to keep proper distance for dorms and/or classes. Think about it.

Stop calling your schools, bc this would be the absolute “best” they could possibly do, and NO school will have an answer until AUGUST. It is completely and entirely out of anyone’s hands, including yours. That is the way it is, and you better teach your kid some resiliency, but quick.

Many schools have already announced a hybrid plan, meaning large classes online, and smaller classes in person with distancing, but almost all plans have dorms open

Lol *work

I irk for a college and I can tell you that most are considering a hybrid (1/2 at home, 1/2 at school bc NO school has the space to keep proper distance for dorms and/or classes. Think about it.

Stop calling your schools, bc this would be the absolute “best” they could possibly do, and NO school will have an answer until AUGUST. It is completely and entirely out of anyone’s hands, including yours. That is the way it is, and you better teach your kid some resiliency, but quick.

First, assuming there is a one size fits all solution for returning kids to campus is silly. Making it work a rural, affluent SLAC with about 2000 kids, almost all residential, 80% of classes have 20 kids or fewer, but no major medical center nearby is different from making it work at UCLA are two completely different things.


Second, all the parents I know who have healthy kids with no underlying medical issues, myself included, are planning to send their kids back if campus reopens. I also plan to send my high school student back as much as FCPS will allow.

Here’s the thing. Distance learning and online classes and telework have been okay in our house. No major issues. And we have been very conservative thus far on interactions outside our house. But they come at a cost. Both my kids are really trying to make it work and aren’t complaining. But, they are increasingly lonely, depressed, anxious, sad. The lack of social interaction is very hard. Distance learning is not a substitute for high school, and it’s definitely not a substitute for my science major college kid.

It is unlikely we will get a vaccine in time to save the 20-21 school year. And I acknowledge there is a decent chance my college age kid especially will be infected. Hopefully they can antibody test and do a rapid test before he leaves campus at Thanksgiving. But, there is a cost benefit analysis. It also isn’t healthy to learn in my basement for another year, with no social interactions. And I strongly suspect that once we have good models, we will discover a huge uptick in mental illness, substance abuse and suicide among high school and college kids the longer this drags on.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And how is it safer at home? Parents of college age children are older and may even have a grandparent at home.

My neighbor is 54 with a 56 year old husband and she has an 88 year old dad living with them.

She is sending her junior back even if school is 100 percent on line as she is going to rent an apt in fall.

My daughters boyfriend is doing door dash, Uber eats and instacart and playing soccer with friends. He is going back.

I know folks go OMH how can little suzie have a roommate but bottom line kids don’t live alone when college is not in session.

Living in an apartment, where you pay rent 24/7 and isolate 100% from your parents? I can see that, but colleges aren't set up that way, kids go home over breaks. They travel through airports, and then they go stay with their parents. So, if you have a college of 10K, where 60% have the virus, that's 6K household, and tons of travelers who are now exposed. Maybe the complication rate among the students is low, but the rate among the people they infect won't be.

My daughters college nearly all juniors and seniors live off campus. They rent by bed off campus. Realtors track it by Heads on Beds. You price it not by unit but by bed. So 1/2 the school lives off campus. My daughters college then Amherst, there are more college students then residents. I was shocked but all my daughters friends are coming back and off campus housing is nearly sold out. Leases are non refundable. 1/2 the college is going back even if all on line. Kids who are upperclassmen will have been gone six months by then.

My daughter plans on staying till Xmas break this year so don’t see how she will come home with something. Same for most kids

There was a farm recently that all 200 workers got it. No one died. A lot are sick, the asymtomatic ones are still working while rest recover in bunk house. Guess what in two weeks it is fine. Assuming they all live.

Anonymous wrote:And how is it safer at home? Parents of college age children are older and may even have a grandparent at home.

My neighbor is 54 with a 56 year old husband and she has an 88 year old dad living with them.

She is sending her junior back even if school is 100 percent on line as she is going to rent an apt in fall.

My daughters boyfriend is doing door dash, Uber eats and instacart and playing soccer with friends. He is going back.

I know folks go OMH how can little suzie have a roommate but bottom line kids don’t live alone when college is not in session.

Living in an apartment, where you pay rent 24/7 and isolate 100% from your parents? I can see that, but colleges aren't set up that way, kids go home over breaks. They travel through airports, and then they go stay with their parents. So, if you have a college of 10K, where 60% have the virus, that's 6K household, and tons of travelers who are now exposed. Maybe the complication rate among the students is low, but the rate among the people they infect won't be.

And how is it safer at home? Parents of college age children are older and may even have a grandparent at home.

My neighbor is 54 with a 56 year old husband and she has an 88 year old dad living with them.

She is sending her junior back even if school is 100 percent on line as she is going to rent an apt in fall.

My daughters boyfriend is doing door dash, Uber eats and instacart and playing soccer with friends. He is going back.

I know folks go OMH how can little suzie have a roommate but bottom line kids don’t live alone when college is not in session.

Anonymous wrote:There are two camps of people. The ones who want to shut down until it’s over, and the ones who recognize that it won’t be over for years and life must go on. If we keep colleges closed this fall, the second wave may hit in december or january and then spring semester is gone too. How long can we keep this up?

There are not 2 camps. Most people know you can't wait until there's a widely distributed vaccine, but that a couple months in with relatively little data is too soon to do a massive "let's just open things up and see what happens" experiment with congregation at colleges and universities for the 20 million students and all the associated staff, faculty, communities. There are considerable "inbetween" positions informed by public health about what makes sense. We could do regional phased in options, less density supplemented with on-line instruction etc.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If a college kid gets sick, then what? Keep them in the dorms if they are not able to go home? What if they are sick for a month and miss the entire semester?

This can easily be shared with 100's of kids in the dorms, sharing bathrooms and cafeterias. Bad idea.

How is this a thing if less than 0.5% have had it, most are completely asymptomatic, no reports of asymptomatic teens giving adults or others the virus, and a miniscule number of people in their twenties have died and most if not all had pre-exisiting conditions.

Open the colleges, allow professors to teach online if they choose. Allow families to choose living on campus, commuter, or remote learning. Sign waivers for campus and commuter students.

College kids have a million times more risk to die of alcohol poisoning, the regular flu or a car accident. It is time to move on for the younger kids, teens, and college kids.

Asymptomatic is a huge issue. How do you not understand that is how it is being spread? How do you not get one person can infect hundreds of people who infect hundreds more? What do you do when a college kid far from home gets sick? You cannot send them home. So, they stay in the dorms with shared bathrooms and a roommate and make everyone sick? If a student dies, you don't think the parents will blame the school and sue?

What about the professors, cleaning staff and all the others who work on campus who are not young adults who could get sick? What about the young adults dying from this too?

But, please send your kid as a test.

Anonymous wrote:I thought liberty was in session? How did they function? How did they handle cases of covid 19?

The vast majority of students left, so they had about 1,000 students on a campus built for 8,000. The moved all classes online, so those students studied in their room. They cancelled all in person events. Closed the gyms. Made all food take out. Closed the library . . .

So, the experience wasn't remotely like college. All those restrictions seem to have worked, and given that some of the students were international students who didn't have a choice to return home, letting them stay was a kind thing.

But as the parent of college kid, if you told me that my kid could go back to school, but he wouldn't be allowed to attend any classes, eat with friends, go to the gym, play intramural sports, or use the library, I would question whether that was worth paying for. Wouldn't you?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If a college kid gets sick, then what? Keep them in the dorms if they are not able to go home? What if they are sick for a month and miss the entire semester?

This can easily be shared with 100's of kids in the dorms, sharing bathrooms and cafeterias. Bad idea.

How is this a thing if less than 0.5% have had it, most are completely asymptomatic, no reports of asymptomatic teens giving adults or others the virus, and a miniscule number of people in their twenties have died and most if not all had pre-exisiting conditions.

Open the colleges, allow professors to teach online if they choose. Allow families to choose living on campus, commuter, or remote learning. Sign waivers for campus and commuter students.

College kids have a million times more risk to die of alcohol poisoning, the regular flu or a car accident. It is time to move on for the younger kids, teens, and college kids.

During a typical 3 month period, 550 Americans die of alcohol poisoning. The largest group of those are ages 35 to 64. They make up 76% of those deaths.

Even if we assume that all the rest of the alcohol poisonings are people under 35 (doubtful, but I'll give you that). That's 132 deaths. 654 Americans under 35 died of covid in the same period.

How is that millions more?

Also, where are you getting the info that asymptomatic young adults don't pass the virus? Prepubescent children yes, people over 18? I haven't seen anything to support that.