[M T]

Another "ACC" school closed campus.
This time it was Notre Dame.  Their number of cases apparently tripled overnight and now they have ~150 cases.

I'm not sure that the ND closure is the same as UNC.
ND says 2 weeks of remote classes.  Off-campus students shouldn't go to the campus.  On-campus students shouldn't leave campus.  Gatherings  on or off campus limited to 10. Athletes keep doing their athletics.

[M T]

Another "ACC" school closed campus.
This time it was Notre Dame.  Their number of cases apparently tripled overnight and now they have ~150 cases.

I'm not sure that the ND closure is the same as UNC.
ND says 2 weeks of remote classes.  Off-campus students shouldn't go to the campus.  On-campus students shouldn't leave campus.  Gatherings  on or off campus limited to 10. Athletes keep doing their athletics.

[dabigv13]

It's 2 weeks for now. Would be pretty surprised if that holds. I suspect they will shut down for the semester soon.

[dabigv13]

It's 2 weeks for now. Would be pretty surprised if that holds. I suspect they will shut down for the semester soon.

[BostonCard]

In addition to UNC and Notre Dame, MSU has also suspended in person classes.

https://news.google.com/articles/CAIiEMk...id=US%3Aen

BC

[BostonCard]

In addition to UNC and Notre Dame, MSU has also suspended in person classes.

https://news.google.com/articles/CAIiEMk...id=US%3Aen

BC

[teejers1]

In addition to UNC and Notre Dame, MSU has also suspended in person classes.

https://news.google.com/articles/CAIiEMk...id=US%3Aen

BC

Random comments:

1.  In none of the stories/articles linked was there mention of any of the positive testees being sick, let alone requiring hospitalization.  Don't you think that is odd (or at least, poor reporting)?  Do you think because that is just assumed with people 18-25 years old (yeah, neither do I).  Regardless, I now have come to expect that lack of reporting from mainstream sources, so I'm actually surprised when an article observes that the person(s) testing positive are asymptomatic and/or did not require hospitalization . . . ].

2.  The additional data (you linked?) is to North Carolina dashboard.  Couldn't find any Orange County hospital data, which I assume is where Chapel Hill is located.  The state's hospital capacity looks okay, if I'm reading it correctly.

3.  If a college is really going to try and have students on campus, don't you think they need to implement a protocol for letting them back on campus?  I'd have them arrive in groups and run them through a testing and isolation protocol before they are "cleared" to go into campus living.  Would it be expensive?  Yes.  But if you're going to try it, you must give it some chance to be sustainable.  Having kids descend on campus from all over/parts unknown and just "get to it," is never gonna work.

4.  I do believe this supports notion that kids returning to college provides far greater risk of spread than does school returning to football (or other sports, for that matter).  Much easier to control environment in sports-related activities.

[teejers1]

In addition to UNC and Notre Dame, MSU has also suspended in person classes.

https://news.google.com/articles/CAIiEMk...id=US%3Aen

BC

Random comments:

1.  In none of the stories/articles linked was there mention of any of the positive testees being sick, let alone requiring hospitalization.  Don't you think that is odd (or at least, poor reporting)?  Do you think because that is just assumed with people 18-25 years old (yeah, neither do I).  Regardless, I now have come to expect that lack of reporting from mainstream sources, so I'm actually surprised when an article observes that the person(s) testing positive are asymptomatic and/or did not require hospitalization . . . ].

2.  The additional data (you linked?) is to North Carolina dashboard.  Couldn't find any Orange County hospital data, which I assume is where Chapel Hill is located.  The state's hospital capacity looks okay, if I'm reading it correctly.

3.  If a college is really going to try and have students on campus, don't you think they need to implement a protocol for letting them back on campus?  I'd have them arrive in groups and run them through a testing and isolation protocol before they are "cleared" to go into campus living.  Would it be expensive?  Yes.  But if you're going to try it, you must give it some chance to be sustainable.  Having kids descend on campus from all over/parts unknown and just "get to it," is never gonna work.

4.  I do believe this supports notion that kids returning to college provides far greater risk of spread than does school returning to football (or other sports, for that matter).  Much easier to control environment in sports-related activities.

[Goose]

It is pretty reasonable to believe that even with great compliance having basically a "normal" student situation, i.e. in-person classes and two to a room in the dorms that eventually COVID-19 would spread quickly. If the student body wasn't known to be COVID-19 negative to start with, that spread would start quickly. You can't social distance in full classrooms. Therefore, it was never going to work.
However, there is a quote from the student newspaper that captures what our problem in the USA is, IMHO.

But University leadership should have expected students, many of whom are now living on their own for the first time, to be reckless. Reports of parties throughout the weekend come as no surprise. Though these students are not faultless, it was the University’s responsibility to disincentivize such gatherings by reconsidering its plans to operate in-person earlier on.

In other words, students being reckless is normal, should be expected, and "somebody" should protect them from their own behavior. I believe that the main difference between our society and the European societies is that nobody in Europe expects that one should be protected from their own recklessness by others. Actions have consequences. Europeans also do reckless things, but they don't expect a "nanny" to take care of them when they do.

[Goose]

It is pretty reasonable to believe that even with great compliance having basically a "normal" student situation, i.e. in-person classes and two to a room in the dorms that eventually COVID-19 would spread quickly. If the student body wasn't known to be COVID-19 negative to start with, that spread would start quickly. You can't social distance in full classrooms. Therefore, it was never going to work.
However, there is a quote from the student newspaper that captures what our problem in the USA is, IMHO.

But University leadership should have expected students, many of whom are now living on their own for the first time, to be reckless. Reports of parties throughout the weekend come as no surprise. Though these students are not faultless, it was the University’s responsibility to disincentivize such gatherings by reconsidering its plans to operate in-person earlier on.

In other words, students being reckless is normal, should be expected, and "somebody" should protect them from their own behavior. I believe that the main difference between our society and the European societies is that nobody in Europe expects that one should be protected from their own recklessness by others. Actions have consequences. Europeans also do reckless things, but they don't expect a "nanny" to take care of them when they do.

[chrisk]

In addition to UNC and Notre Dame, MSU has also suspended in person classes.

https://news.google.com/articles/CAIiEMk...id=US%3Aen

BC

Random comments:

1.  In none of the stories/articles linked was there mention of any of the positive testees being sick, let alone requiring hospitalization.  Don't you think that is odd (or at least, poor reporting)?  Do you think because that is just assumed with people 18-25 years old (yeah, neither do I).  Regardless, I now have come to expect that lack of reporting from mainstream sources, so I'm actually surprised when an article observes that the person(s) testing positive are asymptomatic and/or did not require hospitalization . . . ].

2.  The additional data (you linked?) is to North Carolina dashboard.  Couldn't find any Orange County hospital data, which I assume is where Chapel Hill is located.  The state's hospital capacity looks okay, if I'm reading it correctly.

3.  If a college is really going to try and have students on campus, don't you think they need to implement a protocol for letting them back on campus?  I'd have them arrive in groups and run them through a testing and isolation protocol before they are "cleared" to go into campus living.  Would it be expensive?  Yes.  But if you're going to try it, you must give it some chance to be sustainable.  Having kids descend on campus from all over/parts unknown and just "get to it," is never gonna work.

4.  I do believe this supports notion that kids returning to college provides far greater risk of spread than does school returning to football (or other sports, for that matter).  Much easier to control environment in sports-related activities.

Notre Dame did have the students tested before they arrived, but the off-campus students are not living in bubble and do not have any supervision.

[chrisk]

In addition to UNC and Notre Dame, MSU has also suspended in person classes.

https://news.google.com/articles/CAIiEMk...id=US%3Aen

BC

Random comments:

1.  In none of the stories/articles linked was there mention of any of the positive testees being sick, let alone requiring hospitalization.  Don't you think that is odd (or at least, poor reporting)?  Do you think because that is just assumed with people 18-25 years old (yeah, neither do I).  Regardless, I now have come to expect that lack of reporting from mainstream sources, so I'm actually surprised when an article observes that the person(s) testing positive are asymptomatic and/or did not require hospitalization . . . ].

2.  The additional data (you linked?) is to North Carolina dashboard.  Couldn't find any Orange County hospital data, which I assume is where Chapel Hill is located.  The state's hospital capacity looks okay, if I'm reading it correctly.

3.  If a college is really going to try and have students on campus, don't you think they need to implement a protocol for letting them back on campus?  I'd have them arrive in groups and run them through a testing and isolation protocol before they are "cleared" to go into campus living.  Would it be expensive?  Yes.  But if you're going to try it, you must give it some chance to be sustainable.  Having kids descend on campus from all over/parts unknown and just "get to it," is never gonna work.

4.  I do believe this supports notion that kids returning to college provides far greater risk of spread than does school returning to football (or other sports, for that matter).  Much easier to control environment in sports-related activities.

Notre Dame did have the students tested before they arrived, but the off-campus students are not living in bubble and do not have any supervision.

[M T]

2.  The additional data (you linked?) is to North Carolina dashboard.  Couldn't find any Orange County hospital data, which I assume is where Chapel Hill is located.  The state's hospital capacity looks okay, if I'm reading it correctly.

If you go to https://www.orangecountync.gov/2332/Coro...s-COVID-19 and click the horizontal scrolling topics over to the data page "Orange County Trends", you will can see
"Total Covid Cases Hospitalized in UNC System".  Over the last 4 weeks, it has been (oddly) flat at about 125 cases.    This page indicates a total of "more than 950 beds".

[M T]

2.  The additional data (you linked?) is to North Carolina dashboard.  Couldn't find any Orange County hospital data, which I assume is where Chapel Hill is located.  The state's hospital capacity looks okay, if I'm reading it correctly.

If you go to https://www.orangecountync.gov/2332/Coro...s-COVID-19 and click the horizontal scrolling topics over to the data page "Orange County Trends", you will can see
"Total Covid Cases Hospitalized in UNC System".  Over the last 4 weeks, it has been (oddly) flat at about 125 cases.    This page indicates a total of "more than 950 beds".

[BostonCard]

In addition to UNC and Notre Dame, MSU has also suspended in person classes.

https://news.google.com/articles/CAIiEMk...id=US%3Aen

BC

Random comments:

1.  In none of the stories/articles linked was there mention of any of the positive testees being sick, let alone requiring hospitalization.  Don't you think that is odd (or at least, poor reporting)?  Do you think because that is just assumed with people 18-25 years old (yeah, neither do I).  Regardless, I now have come to expect that lack of reporting from mainstream sources, so I'm actually surprised when an article observes that the person(s) testing positive are asymptomatic and/or did not require hospitalization . . . ].

Yes, it's a bit of a frustration that the data is not reported.  I'm not sure if it is bad reporting or simply that the data is not collected (as in, is there any way to link positive tests to hospitalization data), but it certainly would be useful.  If no one is getting sick, then changes in the schools may not be necessary; on the other hand, if a small but finite proportion of the students are hospitalized (or worse) it might be useful to encourage behavioral changes.

That being said, there is enough data about age specific mortality and death to be able to make an educated estimate.



https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nco...index.html

Note that the data is based on a denominator of all persons in the US (cumulative hospitalization and death rate by age), not the proportion of positive tests.  If you had the age stratified positive tests you could do the calculation.

You could also run the risk calculator here: https://riskcalc.org/COVID19/

A 21-year old non-Hispanic non-smoking male with no risk factors and no symptoms other than known exposure to COVID-19 has a 1% probability of being hospitalized, so it seems that in these outbreaks you are talking about at most a handful of students needing hospitalization for COVID-19. 

BC

[BostonCard]

In addition to UNC and Notre Dame, MSU has also suspended in person classes.

https://news.google.com/articles/CAIiEMk...id=US%3Aen

BC

Random comments:

1.  In none of the stories/articles linked was there mention of any of the positive testees being sick, let alone requiring hospitalization.  Don't you think that is odd (or at least, poor reporting)?  Do you think because that is just assumed with people 18-25 years old (yeah, neither do I).  Regardless, I now have come to expect that lack of reporting from mainstream sources, so I'm actually surprised when an article observes that the person(s) testing positive are asymptomatic and/or did not require hospitalization . . . ].

Yes, it's a bit of a frustration that the data is not reported.  I'm not sure if it is bad reporting or simply that the data is not collected (as in, is there any way to link positive tests to hospitalization data), but it certainly would be useful.  If no one is getting sick, then changes in the schools may not be necessary; on the other hand, if a small but finite proportion of the students are hospitalized (or worse) it might be useful to encourage behavioral changes.

That being said, there is enough data about age specific mortality and death to be able to make an educated estimate.



https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nco...index.html

Note that the data is based on a denominator of all persons in the US (cumulative hospitalization and death rate by age), not the proportion of positive tests.  If you had the age stratified positive tests you could do the calculation.

You could also run the risk calculator here: https://riskcalc.org/COVID19/

A 21-year old non-Hispanic non-smoking male with no risk factors and no symptoms other than known exposure to COVID-19 has a 1% probability of being hospitalized, so it seems that in these outbreaks you are talking about at most a handful of students needing hospitalization for COVID-19. 

BC

[DocSavage87]

2.  The additional data (you linked?) is to North Carolina dashboard.  Couldn't find any Orange County hospital data, which I assume is where Chapel Hill is located.  The state's hospital capacity looks okay, if I'm reading it correctly.

If you go to https://www.orangecountync.gov/2332/Coro...s-COVID-19 and click the horizontal scrolling topics over to the data page "Orange County Trends", you will can see
"Total Covid Cases Hospitalized in UNC System".  Over the last 4 weeks, it has been (oddly) flat at about 125 cases.    This page indicates a total of "more than 950 beds".

This UNC-Chapel Hill Tracker is more specific to the campus and comes with a lot of caveats as described in the Orange County tracker:
https://public.tableau.com/profile/oira....sDashboard

Disclaimer: the UNC Dasboard is updated weekly on Mondays. Their data is based on numbers from UNC campus health. Positive cases include positive results from Campus Health and clinical testing, proactive community testing and self-reports. The Orange County dashboard is based on the state’s communicable disease tracking system, NC COVID. In NC COVID, if a UNC student tests positive for COVID-19 and has used their county of residence (not Orange County) as their address, the positive result is sent to their county of residence first. It will be sent back to Orange County but it may take some time, maybe up to a week.

[DocSavage87]

2.  The additional data (you linked?) is to North Carolina dashboard.  Couldn't find any Orange County hospital data, which I assume is where Chapel Hill is located.  The state's hospital capacity looks okay, if I'm reading it correctly.

If you go to https://www.orangecountync.gov/2332/Coro...s-COVID-19 and click the horizontal scrolling topics over to the data page "Orange County Trends", you will can see
"Total Covid Cases Hospitalized in UNC System".  Over the last 4 weeks, it has been (oddly) flat at about 125 cases.    This page indicates a total of "more than 950 beds".

This UNC-Chapel Hill Tracker is more specific to the campus and comes with a lot of caveats as described in the Orange County tracker:
https://public.tableau.com/profile/oira....sDashboard

Disclaimer: the UNC Dasboard is updated weekly on Mondays. Their data is based on numbers from UNC campus health. Positive cases include positive results from Campus Health and clinical testing, proactive community testing and self-reports. The Orange County dashboard is based on the state’s communicable disease tracking system, NC COVID. In NC COVID, if a UNC student tests positive for COVID-19 and has used their county of residence (not Orange County) as their address, the positive result is sent to their county of residence first. It will be sent back to Orange County but it may take some time, maybe up to a week.

[teejers1]

Notre Dame did have the students tested before they arrived, but the off-campus students are not living in bubble and do not have any supervision.

I would suggest ND (and other universities) control testing for all kids who plan to attend ND, whether living on or off campus.  I know that can be difficult and expensive, but if you don't do that, you are (i) relying on arrivees to say they tested negative (presumably recently), (ii) ignoring possibility of transmission at any time post-test to arrival in South Bend, and (iii) relinquishing consistency and control standards.

P.S.  It's not THAT surprising that hospitalization numbers would be flat, even amidst an outbreak of 150 positive tests of college-aged students.  It also would not be surprising if a one or two needed hospital treatment.  I certainly would not expect a big spike in hospitalization numbers from what we read about at UNC itself.

[teejers1]

Notre Dame did have the students tested before they arrived, but the off-campus students are not living in bubble and do not have any supervision.

I would suggest ND (and other universities) control testing for all kids who plan to attend ND, whether living on or off campus.  I know that can be difficult and expensive, but if you don't do that, you are (i) relying on arrivees to say they tested negative (presumably recently), (ii) ignoring possibility of transmission at any time post-test to arrival in South Bend, and (iii) relinquishing consistency and control standards.

P.S.  It's not THAT surprising that hospitalization numbers would be flat, even amidst an outbreak of 150 positive tests of college-aged students.  It also would not be surprising if a one or two needed hospital treatment.  I certainly would not expect a big spike in hospitalization numbers from what we read about at UNC itself.

[82 Card]

You could also run the risk calculator here: https://riskcalc.org/COVID19/



A 21-year old non-Hispnic non-smoking male with no risk factors and no symptoms other than known exposure to COVID-19 has a 1% probability of being hospitalized, so it seems that in these outbreaks you are talking about at most a handful of students needing hospitalization for COVID-19. 

This calculator confuses me. It doesn't state what risk it is calculating. In running alternate scenarios, I discovered that it gave me a lower percentage if I put in coronary artery disease instead of leaving comorbidity blank. Maybe it figures that with coronary artery disease I wouldn't make it to the hospital.

[82 Card]

You could also run the risk calculator here: https://riskcalc.org/COVID19/



A 21-year old non-Hispnic non-smoking male with no risk factors and no symptoms other than known exposure to COVID-19 has a 1% probability of being hospitalized, so it seems that in these outbreaks you are talking about at most a handful of students needing hospitalization for COVID-19. 

This calculator confuses me. It doesn't state what risk it is calculating. In running alternate scenarios, I discovered that it gave me a lower percentage if I put in coronary artery disease instead of leaving comorbidity blank. Maybe it figures that with coronary artery disease I wouldn't make it to the hospital.

[oldalum]

I would suggest ND (and other universities) control testing for all kids who plan to attend ND, whether living on or off campus.  .

That's what Vanderbilt did (and likely others too): mailed out test kits to all students, who had to self-administer the test on Zoom (to verify identity and ensure it was done correctly), send back the kit and test negative before being permitted back on campus. Then all students will be tested again sometime after arrival, plus additional tests during the semester.

[oldalum]

I would suggest ND (and other universities) control testing for all kids who plan to attend ND, whether living on or off campus.  .

That's what Vanderbilt did (and likely others too): mailed out test kits to all students, who had to self-administer the test on Zoom (to verify identity and ensure it was done correctly), send back the kit and test negative before being permitted back on campus. Then all students will be tested again sometime after arrival, plus additional tests during the semester.