Back to school time - What are your kids doing?

[scfr]

My niece just started her freshman year of college. She moved in to the dorm last week and had her first classes yesterday. (I'm kind of involved in her college education even though I'm not a parent. I've contributed to her college fund since she was born and helped her picked out dorm gear.) It was her choice to go in person and the family is supporting her, but it's a nervous time for sure. She'll be doing a mix of online and in-class instruction. I'm reading the information available online about her school's mitigation plans and checking the Covid-19 dashboard. The number of students living on campus this year is half what it was last year, and over 80% of class registrations are online. We have faith that she'll follow guidelines, and the school she is attending is the opposite of a party school which should minimize the risk, but there is still a lot left up to chance. Fingers crossed that she and her roommate and everyone on campus will be careful and safe.

[disneysteve]

My niece just started her freshman year of college.

Good luck to her.

Univ. of Alabama has reported over 500 cases since classes started. Ohio State suspended over 200 students for violating the COVID regulations. Various other schools have reported spikes in cases after opening and several have re-closed.

[rennigade]

Good luck to her.

Univ. of Alabama has reported over 500 cases since classes started. Ohio State suspended over 200 students for violating the COVID regulations. Various other schools have reported spikes in cases after opening and several have re-closed.

How many of those confirmed cases have people died?

[riverwed070707]

How many of those confirmed cases have people died?

If your only concern is whether the student themselves has died since school started 2 weeks ago, you probably have little to worry about. Carry on as normal.

[rennigade]

If your only concern is whether the student themselves has died since school started 2 weeks ago, you probably have little to worry about. Carry on as normal.

Im more concerned with overall how many people have died from covid. Last I heard it was 800k worldwide. I based it off 7billion people, which is low. The greatest threat to humanity, covid, has now killed .000114% of the planet. Hate to say it, but texashunter was right all along. I was hoodwinked like most people. I let mainstream win.

[disneysteve]

How many of those confirmed cases have people died?

I haven't heard of any student deaths yet, but why does that matter? It's not like COVID is only important if it kills you.

[disneysteve]

Im more concerned with overall how many people have died from covid. Last I heard it was 800k worldwide. I based it off 7billion people, which is low. The greatest threat to humanity, covid, has now killed .000114% of the planet. Hate to say it, but texashunter was right all along. I was hoodwinked like most people. I let mainstream win.

Hoodwinked about what exactly?

There are 23,700,000 confirmed cases and 814,000 confirmed deaths. That's a death rate of 3.43%. And that's not fully accurate because millions of those cases are still actively sick so more of those active patients will likely die. But even 3.43% is 3 times the death rate from the seasonal flu.

I still can't comprehend the people who continue to think this is a hoax.

I certainly wouldn't want my kid attending a college that logged 500 cases in the first week.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Im more concerned with overall how many people have died from covid. Last I heard it was 800k worldwide. I based it off 7billion people, which is low. The greatest threat to humanity, covid, has now killed .000114% of the planet. Hate to say it, but texashunter was right all along. I was hoodwinked like most people. I let mainstream win.

maybe. but then when it is you and yours who die you'll be pissed and say "why wasn't more done? Why weren't we warned?" It's always someone else's problem until it becomes your own. Then suddenly people want something done. it's NIMBY.

[disneysteve]

I would also add that the reason the death rate isn't far higher is exactly because of the aggressive measures that have been taken: shutdowns, masks, remote learning, work from home, etc. Had we not done all of that the number of deaths would be in the millions by now.

[disneysteve]

There are growing reports of long term health issues related to COVID, even in asymptomatic patients. Lung damage. Heart damage. Even in children. Whether you choose to believe it or not, it's an extremely serious disease. It's not "just the flu".

[james.hendrickson]

There are growing reports of long term health issues related to COVID, even in asymptomatic patients. Lung damage. Heart damage. Even in children. Whether you choose to believe it or not, it's an extremely serious disease. It's not "just the flu".

Right, like polio. Even if the disease doesn't kill you, it has nasty long term side effects.

[rennigade]

Hoodwinked about what exactly?

There are 23,700,000 confirmed cases and 814,000 confirmed deaths. That's a death rate of 3.43%. And that's not fully accurate because millions of those cases are still actively sick so more of those active patients will likely die. But even 3.43% is 3 times the death rate from the seasonal flu.

I still can't comprehend the people who continue to think this is a hoax.

I certainly wouldn't want my kid attending a college that logged 500 cases in the first week.

I dont think its a haox. I know its very real. Its just not what we were all led to believe it is. Two months ago, it was the end of the world. The reality is, its not the end of the world. Its not as bad as it was made out to be. We have some pretty major hospitals around where I live. They basically shut them down for months for covid patients....patients they never received because we had very little cases around here. So why was my area shut down when no one was sick? The worst part is...they were denying non life threatening procedures to take place. Hospitals were denying people to come in for routine checkups. Guess what we're going to be seeing in a year or two?? A lot of dead people who werent able to receive a simple check up that could have caught cancer at an earlier stage...or other things that could have been caught early. There will be more people that die from things that could have been prevented than there will be from covid. It wont be reported as such because it will be a byproduct of this massive screw up.

[disneysteve]

Two months ago, it was the end of the world. The reality is, its not the end of the world. Its not as bad as it was made out to be.

You're absolutely right. The total caseload and death count is much lower than we had feared and predicted back in March? Why? Because of the aggressive worldwide measures taken to mitigate the spread of the disease! Virtually the entire planet shut down in a global concerted effort to contain this virus - AND IT WORKED!

Go back and find some of my posts from March. Numerous times I said that if when this is all over, the measures taken look like they were a colossal overreaction, that means we did the right thing.

We could have taken a different approach. We could have kept doing elective procedures in hospitals. We could have kept schools open. We could have continued air travel and cruises and indoor dining and huge concerts and festivals. We could have just told people to stay home if they didn't feel well. I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that had we done that, the results would have been catastrophic. Instead of 24 million cases and 800,000 deaths, we'd probably have an extra zero on both of those numbers.

Rather than feeling hoodwinked, you should be grateful that it wasn't ten times worse. Your town wasn't greatly impacted. That's terrific. Mine was devastated. Just my county alone has had 531 confirmed deaths and another 54 probables. Just the hospital system I work for was packed with COVID patients. Every single ICU bed filled. Every one of them on a ventilator. For weeks on end. I think our peak was somewhere around 300 hospitalized patients (it might have been higher, I forget exactly).

And it's not over yet. As numerous posts in this thread show, cases are picking up again as things try to get back to some semblance of normal. When one college records over 500 cases within a week of opening, that doesn't bode well for how things will go nationwide. And flu season is right around the corner too. We are terrified in healthcare about what the next few months are going to look like for us.

Are a bunch of college students going to die? No, probably not. But just last week an outbreak of 50-ish cases was traced to a small wedding. 65 people attended (which violated the local law regarding gathering sizes. That led to over 50 cases and at least 1 death - and the person who died WASN'T at the wedding. She got infected by someone who was. That's the real danger here. Sure, the healthy college student might be fine, but then they go home for the weekend and get grandmom sick. Or they get their English professor sick. Or they go off campus and get an older restaurant worker sick. It's not just the "healthy" patients who suffer.

[Snydley]

I dont think its a haox. I know its very real. Its just not what we were all led to believe it is.

We didn't know what to believe it was. In February, I was terrified of this virus. I, someone who followed closely the latest Ebola outbreaks at work. This could have transmitted, had fatality rates like Ebola. We needed to shelter in place to learn how this virus transmits and what it is capable of.

Could it be worse? Yes. However, as DS posts, this is NO flu. The long viral syndromes people are experiencing are, to me, terrifying, and we simply do not know if people will recover from them. Also, strangely, someone can have mild symptoms, recover, and 2 months later be very sick with cardiac and other issues.

[~bs]

We didn't know what to believe it was. In February, I was terrified of this virus. I, someone who followed closely the latest Ebola outbreaks at work. This could have transmitted, had fatality rates like Ebola. We needed to shelter in place to learn how this virus transmits and what it is capable of.

Could it be worse? Yes. However, as DS posts, this is NO flu. The long viral syndromes people are experiencing are, to me, terrifying, and we simply do not know if people will recover from them. Also, strangely, someone can have mild symptoms, recover, and 2 months later be very sick with cardiac and other issues.

Overall death rate is 0.5%, similar to the flu. With a vaccine, it could be even lower. Yes it is scary to many people, but it is no black plague or small pox or any sort of many other diseases that literally wiped out huge amounts of population in the US and world wide. BUT it does seem to be more contagious than the flu and asymptomatic spreading the disease is the bigger risk.

Now that we're entering flu season, one of the bigger challenges is when someone catches BOTH diseases, especially elderly, whos deathrate due to flu is already high.