UNC-Chapel Hill reverses plans for in-person classes after 130 students test positive for Covid-19

Where are the goalposts?

We were told in March that if we shut down and “flattened the curve”, hospitals wouldn’t be overwhelmed and we could re-open slowly. Some states did this very well. Illinois is one example. Hard shutdown early on, very slow phased reopening. Hospitals never close to full. Then they got to phase 4, in which schools can reopen. But 2 weeks before school is supposed to start, the IL dept of public health passed standards and guidelines so ridiculous, that almost every district is choosing virtual start.

What is our goal? Enough hospital space? Zero transmission? No one to die at all? Until when, a vaccine? What if it takes 2 years?

Icouldbeyourmom wrote:

Where are the goalposts?

We were told in March that if we shut down and “flattened the curve”, hospitals wouldn’t be overwhelmed and we could re-open slowly. Some states did this very well. Illinois is one example. Hard shutdown early on, very slow phased reopening. Hospitals never close to full. Then they got to phase 4, in which schools can reopen. But 2 weeks before school is supposed to start, the IL dept of public health passed standards and guidelines so ridiculous, that almost every district is choosing virtual start.

What is our goal? Enough hospital space? Zero transmission? No one to die at all? Until when, a vaccine? What if it takes 2 years?

Get Trump out is the end zone.

for g sake wrote:

Well done ip tracker.

So I will ask again. Did any of them feel sick?

Seems insane to shut down a university of that size and status if many/most were asymptomatic.

People hate hearing the truth, which this is. They enjoy watching the mainstream media and think the government cares about them. I ask you this, how can you have cancer but not have cancer?

Runner10287 wrote:

Icouldbeyourmom wrote:

Where are the goalposts?

We were told in March that if we shut down and “flattened the curve”, hospitals wouldn’t be overwhelmed and we could re-open slowly. Some states did this very well. Illinois is one example. Hard shutdown early on, very slow phased reopening. Hospitals never close to full. Then they got to phase 4, in which schools can reopen. But 2 weeks before school is supposed to start, the IL dept of public health passed standards and guidelines so ridiculous, that almost every district is choosing virtual start.

What is our goal? Enough hospital space? Zero transmission? No one to die at all? Until when, a vaccine? What if it takes 2 years?

Get Trump out is the end zone.

Exactly right. COVID now is just a political device. It's no more of a threat to college students health than the flu, mono, or even STDs.

People outside of the state of NC may not know this, but UNC Chapel Hill is an extremely Liberal university in an even more Liberal town. The administration and Board were getting an extreme amount of pressure from the student activists, town council, and in-state Liberals to shut down. Just look at the editorials coming out of their own student newspaper.

Initially, I believe the administration knew there would be a lot of kids already present/returning to town no matter what. Much of the student population lives in apartments and houses in and around the university. Students who are 19-21 were going to be in town anyway, and therefore the decision was made to try to hold classes. UNC isn't like Wake Forest or Duke where most of the student body is from well-to-do parents footing the bill. They have them there, for sure, but a sizable chunk of the student body is made up of kids from eastern and western NC who really aren't going to go back home, or don't have that option. They have been working in Chapel Hill all summer and likely had rent contracts they couldn't just walk away from.

One thing is for sure: a lot of the freshmen have been there for 3 weeks at this point, so they've been exposed. I am not sure sending them home is such a great idea.

This is a very similar problem with high schools across the country. If you go 100% online, you are going to hurt the kids who don't have the financial and social backing to ensure that they have a solid education. The kids with focused, doting parents, internet connections, and macbooks are going to get the education, while the kids without financial means and a strong support system are going to fall way behind.

I guess this is my way of saying that I don't think UNC went back because they are Trump-loving virus deniers. Their administration is actually very Liberal. I think they were trying to do what is best in a very tough situation. I also don't know what the answer is in this crazy time. I just hope everyone stays safe.

say what you will but trump is an absolute genius...despite the GOP controlling the executive, senate and supreme court, and 29 state legislatures, he's managed to convince his base that some shadowy cabal is to blame for his impotence and incompetence.

For comparison's sake, the US Military has had 34,090 confirmed cases and 4 deaths. One would expect similar outcomes at a college campus as the age demographics are similar (primarily young adults with a few older individuals). That death rate is likely comparable to what a college would expect over a year from things like car accidents, alcohol and drug overdose, the flu and other maladies (meningitis, etc.). They face similar infectious agents each year and keep on rolling, so what is so different this year?

This is just crazy wrote:

University campus is the best to let COVID rip. College kids spreading to each other with virtually little chance of even getting symptoms is perfect.

Now UNC will send these kinds home where they will infect dad and keep him out of work for weeks, while also killing grandma. Stupid, if they kept them on campus nobody gets hurt and we get closer to beating this thing,

Agree completely. New research suggests herd immunity may be reached at far lower levels of infection than previously thought (anywhere from 10-50%). Letting young healthy kids get it and bump our infection rates up is a great way to get to this number.

hi there you wrote:

say what you will but trump is an absolute genius...despite the GOP controlling the executive, senate and supreme court, and 29 state legislatures, he's managed to convince his base that some shadowy cabal is to blame for his impotence and incompetence.

Person.woman.man.camera.tv

for g sake wrote:

Well done ip tracker.

So I will ask again. Did any of them feel sick?

Seems insane to shut down a university of that size and status if many/most were asymptomatic.

Have you had blood work done?

Except college age asymptomatic people are the ones we want to get the disease.

https://twitter.com/justin_hart/status/1295607149058338816

Death rate for them is probably less than .01% That's 1/10,000. Might be 1/100,000.

Anyone know the figure? This disease is really bad for the old and those with comorbidities. For everyone else it is mostly manageable.

This is just crazy wrote:

University campus is the best to let COVID rip. College kids spreading to each other with virtually little chance of even getting symptoms is perfect.

Now UNC will send these kinds home where they will infect dad and keep him out of work for weeks, while also killing grandma. Stupid, if they kept them on campus nobody gets hurt and we get closer to beating this thing,

To my knowledge, there was no intake testing or other scheduled testing for UNC students. The relatively low number of total tests (~900) supports this. Why were students getting tested then? Two reasons: 1) they had symptoms; 2) contact tracing.

Also, the students are not being sent home, though they are being strongly encouraged to leave, and they are being offered refunds for housing. All classes are now virtual. Many of them will stay in town and party their assess off. Will they party in small groups, isolated from the rest of Chapel Hill's residents? Will they have their food and other necessities delivered? Will they wear masks for essential visits to a store? Beats me. Whatever the outcome, the UNC board of governors locked in their tuition, which is clearly all they really cared about.

Many universities are testing kids if they work certain positions on campus or are going out for athletic teams. Many football players at many universities tested positive when they came back for camp and none that I'm aware of had any symptoms.

for g sake wrote:

Well done ip tracker.

So I will ask again. Did any of them feel sick?

Seems insane to shut down a university of that size and status if many/most were asymptomatic.

Exactly, probably few have little symptoms.

Yesterday NYTimes talking about "Twindemic" (Flu and Covid19).

"The 2019-20 flu season in the United States was mild, according to the C.D.C. But a mild flu season still takes a toll. In preliminary estimates, the C.D.C. says that cases ranged from 39 million to 56 million, resulting in up to 740,000 hospitalizations and from 24,000 to 62,000 flu-related deaths."

If that's "mild flu" season numbers then "hard" must be very close to Covid cases, since many are over-reported. But nobody closes nothing for Flu. Eh, madness ...

The best tool we have to tell where we are at in herd immunity is the deaths per day used in combination with deaths per million. The evidence from places where the virus has run its course suggest it saturates in the 600-800 deaths per million. Worrying about the antibody rate is worthless since those tests have proven not to reflect the population infected for a variety of reasons. If you look at Europe where the virus has slowed all around the 600-800 per million range. The variance is based on your counting and the health of the population.

The left has held up places like Italy, Belguim, and now the UK as places that have handled the virus well and decreased their numbers. The truth is they ended up in the exact same place as Sweden and the question is how much damage you want to do in order to end at the same place.

The new England states with large Metro's cooked the death tolls to try and make Trump look bad. But they could open up with minimal spread due to levels of herd immunity. You look at places like Texas, Florida, Arizona, So Cal. The deaths per day level out as they hit 300 to 400 per million then decrease as they approach 600. The measures we have implemented have only slowed the spread over a couple of additional months. We're all ending up in the same place.

I'm sure that could be true many places. That doesn't appear to be the case at UNC. There were at least 130 students who tested positive, most of them in clusters across three different residence halls without any apparent linkage to athletics programs. UNC campus health is currently only testing symptomatic students or those who were in close contact with a known positive. That's a fact.

My #1 runner tested positive upon return to campus.

Back in the olden days, if you wanted to improve your lot in life but had to work to support your family, you took correspondence classes to get a degree. Millions of people used correspondence classes to get degrees and move into white collar jobs and earn middle class incomes. Those correspondence classes have evolved and now there are loads of degree programs that are offered online and an entire industry of exclusively online universities.

College students are not 6 year olds. College students can learn just as well doing their course work virtually as they can in face to face classes. In fact, with Zoom, the difference between virtual and face to face is pretty much zero for most class work.

Sending kids back for face to face instruction is insane given the current levels of infection. It will just result in huge new outbreaks just as the current outbreak is coming under some level of control. Keep college kids at home doing classes virtually until infection levels are well under control and colleges have the resources to test everyone to control outbreaks. Otherwise, we are just setting the stage for a huge crisis this fall once it gets colder and the virus transmits more easily.

color me shocked wrote:

[quote]do to I have fjjjj wrote:

But did any of them actually feel sick?

No! The government picked them up in vans and told them they had covid and INJECTED THEM!

If you read the article it said most had mild symptoms. Which is likely overstated -- should say most, if not all, have no symptoms