for those of you in higher education

[haapai]

To really narrow things down you have to pry open a lot of manhole covers and have a lot of access to the right machines and you pretty much have to be doing this kind of testing before some recently-infected folks start shedding tremendous amounts of (probably inactivated) virus. 

ETA:  They might also be starting by running a surprisingly large number of cycles. 

[TheOtherMe]

Colorado says it is testing wastewater in the dorms.  

[giramomma]

USU is too.

I'm actually surprised at my school.. There's room for 8K students in the dorms. 6.5K have elected to stay in the dorms. It also seems like the kids expect the dorms to close again, but are willing to go through that to make some friends.

[TheOtherMe]

Two different outlooks on the virus from the two flagship schools in the #1 state per capita with coronavirus cases.

The University of Iowa is pausing athletics until at least after Labor Day after having 93 people in the athletic department test positive.

Iowa State, which has the highest rate of infection in the state in Ames, is going to allow 25,000 people to attend it's first football game.  They hope to be able to have all fans back by October 3 when they host Oklahoma.

Want to take bets on that?  

[NastyWoman]

Aug 31, 2020 14:22:17 GMT -5 TheOtherMe said:

Two different outlooks on the virus from the two flagship schools in the #1 state per capita with coronavirus cases.

The University of Iowa is pausing athletics until at least after Labor Day after having 93 people in the athletic department test positive.

Iowa State, which has the highest rate of infection in the state in Ames, is going to allow 25,000 people to attend it's first football game.  They hope to be able to have all fans back by October 3 when they host Oklahoma.

Want to take bets on that?  

Is that how they want to take Oklahoma out of the competition? (Sorry, feeling rather cynical today )

[Opti]

Aug 29, 2020 15:47:12 GMT -5 minnesotapaintlady said:

Aug 29, 2020 15:28:16 GMT -5 Opti said:

It sounds logical, but sports are big money at the college level and some of these college athletes hope for pro careers.

Found some nice data points for 2018 football programs
footballscoop.com/news/the-highest-grossing-football-programs-in-college-football-are/

And how many millions of people work in higher ed and associated industries that depend on the colleges?  No college students, no income for them.  

I don't know. I didn't post that because I disagreed with LifePartTwo's idea, I posted because I noticed college's different responses. How and when various colleges open is going to affect their own workforce plus the ripple effect into bookstores, credit unions, shops, etc.

[giramomma]

So, now my university has released it's data dashboard for number of daily cases. I can compare that to the county.

Assuming everyone is reporting honestly, university students made up 60% of all the positives in the county that came in this past Saturday. Thankfully, it was still a small amount at 26 cases. That hopefully is the outlier, at first blush, it looks like the university is accounting for about  15-25ish percent of the cases in my county.

[TheOtherMe]

Aug 31, 2020 18:56:17 GMT -5 NastyWoman said:

Aug 31, 2020 14:22:17 GMT -5 TheOtherMe said:

Two different outlooks on the virus from the two flagship schools in the #1 state per capita with coronavirus cases.

The University of Iowa is pausing athletics until at least after Labor Day after having 93 people in the athletic department test positive.

Iowa State, which has the highest rate of infection in the state in Ames, is going to allow 25,000 people to attend it's first football game.  They hope to be able to have all fans back by October 3 when they host Oklahoma.

Want to take bets on that?  

Is that how they want to take Oklahoma out of the competition? (Sorry, feeling rather cynical today )

Along with the fans that attend the games. 

[wvugurl26]

Iowa State was the first of the Big 12 schools to say they'd have reduced capacity of 50%. Which is still a ton of people potentially traveling in from other cities and states.

I think the number I saw floated for WVU if they could have fans is 12,000 and they have similarly sized stadiums. There will be no fans in Morgantown for the first game next weekend.

12 students are on probation for off campus parties held before classes began. That county is trending red on the map meaning the K-12 can't go in person. Today's the day that counts so we'll see if they go orange.

[Deleted]

Iowa State is only allowing the season ticket holders in, so they're probably mostly fairly local.

[wvugurl26]

Sept 1, 2020 7:12:03 GMT -5 minnesotapaintlady said:

Iowa State is only allowing the season ticket holders in, so they're probably mostly fairly local.

Hopefully that is true for that school. I know it is not true in Morgantown. I live in another state and hold season tickets. You see a lot of out of state plates in the hotel parking lots.

I requested a refund and I will not be going even if they allow people in at some point. It's too risky after the time we've spent being careful.

[TheOtherMe]

Sept 1, 2020 7:12:03 GMT -5 minnesotapaintlady said:

Iowa State is only allowing the season ticket holders in, so they're probably mostly fairly local.

There are season ticket holders here in Dubuque.  There are season ticket holders all over the state of Iowa at least.  

Ames is currently the #1 city in the country per capita.

Hotel rates go up during football weekends.  That doesn't happen if people are not staying there.

I am so happy my nephew and his family are no longer in Ames.  Professors are saying on twitter they are doomed.  


Go Cyclones!

[Deleted]

Sept 1, 2020 8:29:27 GMT -5 TheOtherMe said:

Sept 1, 2020 7:12:03 GMT -5 minnesotapaintlady said:

Iowa State is only allowing the season ticket holders in, so they're probably mostly fairly local.

There are season ticket holders here in Dubuque.  There are season ticket holders all over the state of Iowa at least.  

Ames is currently the #1 city in the country per capita.

Hotel rates go up during football weekends.  That doesn't happen if people are not staying there.

I am so happy my nephew and his family are no longer in Ames.  Professors are saying on twitter they are doomed.  


Go Cyclones!

And yet there are only two people hospitalized for Covid in Story Cty, so that's good news anyhow.   At what point does the student population reach herd immunity?  I already know of two frats that the entire house has had it and recovered. 

[Deleted]

You can't play pro football if you are dead or have potentially life-long medical problems from COVID. Same for any other sport. 

Not having any sports for a year wouldn't kill people. Having sports will. Having thousands of spectators from all over the place further encourages super spreader events into other communities.

To me, it's a simple answer. You put your students, professors, and staffs' lives ahead of sports and money.

Same thing for in-person school. No one will die from not being able to go to school until we have a handle on the pandemic and adequate testing. But, instead, we just send kids to school and "hope" no one gets sick - despite science saying people will get sick and some will die.

Now they just don't report the positive numbers for schools. Easier to hide it than face the fact we still have a pandemic, I guess? /rhetorical question.

[TheOtherMe]

Herd immunity is not the answer.  

A student at University of Northern Iowa had it.  He was barely sick.  He exposed his grandparents.  His grandfather got it.  He didn't die but it made this student very aware of what he did wrong (partying) and how he could have lost his grandfather.

Lots of selfish people in this world.

[giramomma]

Is

Sept 1, 2020 9:00:22 GMT -5 minnesotapaintlady said:

Sept 1, 2020 8:29:27 GMT -5 TheOtherMe said:

There are season ticket holders here in Dubuque.  There are season ticket holders all over the state of Iowa at least.  

Ames is currently the #1 city in the country per capita.

Hotel rates go up during football weekends.  That doesn't happen if people are not staying there.

I am so happy my nephew and his family are no longer in Ames.  Professors are saying on twitter they are doomed.  


Go Cyclones!

And yet there are only two people hospitalized for Covid in Story Cty, so that's good news anyhow.   At what point does the student population reach herd immunity?  I already know of two frats that the entire house has had it and recovered. 

Isn't herd immunity when 60% of the population has immunity? That's going to take forever. Right now, we're at about .03% of the student population that's tested positive. Besides, I think immunity is fairly short lived.

[Deleted]

It might have to be the answer.  As hopeful as I am for a vaccine to make this all go away we've never created an effective coronavirus one.

Some are saying we won't have to reach the 70% infected mark to really slow things down in a community.

www.nytimes.com/2020/08/17/health/coronavirus-herd-immunity.html

[oped]

We’ve never had a coronavirus that didn’t burn out much easier. Impetus for vaccine only lasts during acute spread and others have not been nearly as effective an spreading.

[oped]

50% of 342 million is 171 million. 1% dead means 1.7 million. Not counting the potential for lifelong disability. And no idea about how the dormant virus might behave.

[oped]

But fuck it. Let’s go. I’m rich and white. I probably won’t die. I can protect my kids. That’s all that matters right?

[giramomma]

Sept 1, 2020 11:05:59 GMT -5 oped said:

But fuck it. Let’s go. I’m rich and white. I probably won’t die. I can protect my kids. That’s all that matters right?

The parents at my kids' school don't even care about protecting their kids or other family, as evidenced by the number of kids that talked about their vacations to national parks and water parks this summer.

Utah is a 24 hour drive from my house. Yellowstone is 19 hours away. I'm guessing that's too far away to go without bathroom breaks...And I'm pretty sure this population isn't putting everyone in depends for the car ride.

[Lizard Queen]

Sept 1, 2020 12:46:38 GMT -5 giramomma said:

Sept 1, 2020 11:05:59 GMT -5 oped said:

But fuck it. Let’s go. I’m rich and white. I probably won’t die. I can protect my kids. That’s all that matters right?

The parents at my kids' school don't even care about protecting their kids or other family, as evidenced by the number of kids that talked about their vacations to national parks and water parks this summer.

Utah is a 24 hour drive from my house. Yellowstone is 19 hours away. I'm guessing that's too far away to go without bathroom breaks...And I'm pretty sure this population isn't putting everyone in depends for the car ride.

If you have a camper, you can go in there. (I've been thinking about this, because I do wish we had one so we could go on a national park your.)
On the other hand, there's my cousin who may be white, but she's far from rich, taking her family on a plane to universal Orlando.

[giramomma]

Sept 1, 2020 13:25:12 GMT -5 Lizard Queen said:

Sept 1, 2020 12:46:38 GMT -5 giramomma said:

The parents at my kids' school don't even care about protecting their kids or other family, as evidenced by the number of kids that talked about their vacations to national parks and water parks this summer.

Utah is a 24 hour drive from my house. Yellowstone is 19 hours away. I'm guessing that's too far away to go without bathroom breaks...And I'm pretty sure this population isn't putting everyone in depends for the car ride.

If you have a camper, you can go in there. (I've been thinking about this, because I do wish we had one so we could go on a national park your.)
On the other hand, there's my cousin who may be white, but she's far from rich, taking her family on a plane to universal Orlando.

One of my music students' parents decided to go ahead and get married in California about a week and a half ago. They flew. Kid went with. I requested to not seem them for a couple of weeks. I explained I needed to stay healthy because we see inlaws, etc.

And, you are right. Maybe they rented RVs and only got out to hike in a socially distant/socially responsible way. Although one kid did say "car."

[TheOtherMe]

Sept 1, 2020 11:05:59 GMT -5 oped said:

But fuck it. Let’s go. I’m rich and white. I probably won’t die. I can protect my kids. That’s all that matters right?

Seems to be the attitude I am seeing where I live and places I frequent online.

That and I'm tired of this and I'm going back to my normal life.

People forget the sacrifices Americans made during the Depression and WWII.  The depression wiped people out financially.  During WWII, there was food rationing, gas rationing, etc.  People pulled together to get through it.

People are unwilling to do that in today's world.  

[thyme4change]

Sept 1, 2020 15:07:11 GMT -5 TheOtherMe said:

Sept 1, 2020 11:05:59 GMT -5 oped said:

But fuck it. Let’s go. I’m rich and white. I probably won’t die. I can protect my kids. That’s all that matters right?

Seems to be the attitude I am seeing where I live and places I frequent online.

That and I'm tired of this and I'm going back to my normal life.

People forget the sacrifices Americans made during the Depression and WWII.  The depression wiped people out financially.  During WWII, there was food rationing, gas rationing, etc.  People pulled together to get through it.

People are unwilling to do that in today's world.  

People getting wiped out financially wasn't a choice to sacrifice.

People getting rationed also wasn't a choice.

The pulling together was just that they did what they had to do - except those that did not. A lot of people left their families. Suicides were high during that time. And we really don't know what people did. Did they bitch and moan about it? Probably. Did they argue with each other? Probably. Did they blame certain leaders and criticize their actions? For sure.

They also stole ration coupons or bought them on the black market if they could.

I have trouble believing that everyone held hands and sung kum-by-ya, happily making more sacrifices than they were forced to make. And I have trouble believing that, because I have stories from 2 parents and 3 grandparents that says they were pissed off and they prioritized themselves and their family over the general good. People weren't that awesome "back then".

[Deleted]

I'm looking forward to the freezing cold and ice of winter. It should slow the tourists down.   

[TheOtherMe]

Iowa State has changed it's mind.  No fans will attend Saturday's football game.  Finally came to their senses.

[haapai]

Sept 2, 2020 14:19:17 GMT -5 TheOtherMe said:

Iowa State has changed it's mind.  No fans will attend Saturday's football game.  Finally came to their senses.

I'm gonna try to tell myself that this is a victory for reason and community-mindedness.  I'm gonna try not to scream "What took you so long, you greedy/desperate <deleted>?"

What the hell is going on in Iowa?  You ain't the reddest state or the least educated.  But you seem to be an outlier in response to this pandemic.  I also fail to understand why any governor who isn't facing re-election until 2022 could possibly see any reason to hitch her wagon behind the chaos monster.  How could any sane person possibly think that there is any future in that?  My third-world childhood is kicking in here, but is it even possible to steal or siphon or set up others enough to make up for what she is doing?  

</deleted>

[TheOtherMe]

Most of rural Iowa is very red.  One congressional district elected Steve King numerous times.  He got primaried and lost.  The guy who one holds similar views but doesn't use the same langage.

See why I can no longer handle my BIL and most of my cousins?

[giramomma]

Well, yesterday's positivity rate on campus with very limited testing (almost 1700 tests) was 3%. 7 day average is still under 2%.

However, yesterday's 49 cases is enough to reset the clock in terms of the peanut being able to go to school, face to face, a couple days a week. But, who knows. Maybe the city will exclude the positive cases from college kids in their data reporting to keep averages low enough that kids can go back to school?