Harbinger or Outlier? BU leans toward keeping campus closed until January
Missed this in all the recruiting hullabaloo...
We aren’t going to be back to “normal” for a long time. I just don’t see how it would be a good idea to have a bunch of people from all over the country (and the world at a international school like Michigan) cluster in lecture halls and dorms and parties, only to fly back four months later
April 14th, 2020 at 11:57 PM ^
On the other hand, that "bunch of people" are primarily very low risk and mostly naturally quarantined from high risk people on a college campus.
I say do the lectures online to protect older professors, and do sections with grad students in person but in smaller groups with seating six feet apart.
What are a bunch of college kids going to do otherwise? They'll either waste away at home or working and if they're working, they're probably putting their parents at risk when it would be safer for parents to have them off at college.
We need to go back to our lives in same shape or form.
Not to mention, gather in the tens of thousands on bleachers for three hours on Saturday afternoons. Even if universities re-open, seems unlikely that we'll have football or any other spectator sport this fall. Pretty depressing thought that only just occurred to me.
It's 9 AM here in London but you'll forgive me if I go crack a beer.
I will defer to epidemiologists, but my guess is that this a harbinger. Given what we know now, I don't see how we'll be able to have people packed into classrooms, dorms, dining halls, or sports stadiums by the fall. It could be an absolute disaster to go back to normal by then. We might even be in the middle of a second waive of Covid-19 at the time, as Dr. Fauci has discussed.
EDIT: I don't mean to be rude - how are things in Moscow?
Not so good, comrade.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/13/world/europe/coronavirus-russia-putin.html
“We have a lot of problems, and we don’t have much to brag about, nor reason to, and we certainly can’t relax,” Mr. Putin told senior officials Monday in a televised video conference. “We are not past the peak of the epidemic, not even in Moscow.”
Well, let's just say that it's no time for half-measures, Erik:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/14/world/moscow-cyber-tracking-qr-code-intl/index.html
You must be embarrassed that China has really put the hammer down. Welding people into their apartments, and has become the ultimate police state. They also lie to the world better. Even if you went back to the USSR, China would still be the ultimate communist nation.
Let’s just blow the country up and keep
using the scare tactic! If we don’t get back to work soon, it won’t matter because a lot of suicide will be taking place!
Yeah but suicide is painless. It brings on many changes. And I can take or leave it if I please.
April 14th, 2020 at 10:36 PM ^
isn't this bullshit ironic....PAINLESS are you absolutely kidding me?
you ever cleaned up a GSW to the head? Ever attended a funeral for an 18-year-old who couldn't manage the world around them and was discovered by family? Ever tried to console a mother who lost their child to something so obvious and avoidable? Reached out to a family when their kid confided in you about the monsters they were fighting? I've spent more time getting shit like that out of my head than you could ever possibly understand. This is one I'll never back down or relent...nothing shakes you like a three AM run to find that kind of tragedy, try to manage the scene, console families, package the body...and make sense of it all. Sleepless nights is just the start of it. This is beyond idiotic. Every time it was the same depth of emotion, same questions, time after time after time, seemed like 20-30 per year...You have ZERO understanding of this.
I may say some shit that rubs people the wrong way because they don't understand different perspectives or simply get it...don't you EVER fucking say suicide is painless...that instant life stops...that black beach of death touches everyone who ever knew the victim...you have ZERO fucking clues on reality. It's NEVER painless...what a dumbass.
April 14th, 2020 at 11:02 PM ^
Are you done? Good, now do me a favor.
Go look up the lyrics to the 1969 song “Suicide is Painless” by Johnny Mandel. More commonly known as the theme to “M*A*S*H”
So how’s it feel knowing that you just exploded like a total loon over a popular song lyric that I only said as a flip response to a stupid comment, as opposed to it being a cold hearted personal commentary on the issue of suicide?
Maybe next time know the context something is being said in before you go on a rant where you condemn me like a totally uninformed fucking fool. Do you go into a rage like this every time an episode of “M*A*S*H” comes on your TV as well?
You’re also a self centered ass for thinking you have some kind of monopoly on knowing the hurt suicide can cause. I’d tell you my considerable experiences of it if I thought you were a person who was worth sharing it with.
But I don’t, so I won’t.
So fuck you for being an ignorant and overreactive asshole AND fuck you for being a presumptuous and sanctimonious, holier than thou, shithead.
April 15th, 2020 at 12:47 AM ^
downvote
Here's the article from the Boston University website that discusses the recovery plan for that university.
Consider these excerpts from the article:
(BU's President says), “We are now in a position to focus on the fall and the best and safest way in which to bring the residential teaching and research community back onto campus when time and public health considerations permit.”
"The plan’s overriding goal, he says, is to define what a residential research university will look like in the early days of the post-pandemic world."
The odds that it will be only BU, the eight ball says:
Not likely.
At this point it's not "only BU." At this point, it's still no one. No one has cancelled fall semester.
You're right that if BU ends up doing this fall semester only online, surely there will be a ton of other colleges in the same situation.
Maybe all or almost all colleges will be open like any other fall. Or maybe no one will be open or almost no one will be open. Maybe it'll be something in between.
This article really doesn't have any information that wasn't common sense for anyone who's been paying attention.
Magic eight ball says:
Ask again later.
i wouldn’t give that school much intellectual credence. They did award AOC a degree in economics of all things.
I dreamt last night that I had a torrid love affair with AOC.
I don't like AOC's politics but you can't deny the lady is smoking hot. I'd certainly hang with her and not say no. She does seem like a blast to be around. That video of her dancing is epic hot. So yeah, dream the good dream
And you may not agree with her politics (I mostly don't) but she is smart and has accomplished a lot for herself, especially for someone so young.
So I guess University of Pennsylvania is also off the list of true intellectual universities considering some of the people they’ve given degrees to.
Love being able to take the political pulse of the board based on certain posts' upvotes/downvotes...please get some sports going.
April 14th, 2020 at 10:12 PM ^
Heavily downvotes standard right wing hot take on AOC.
Upvotes standard misogynist joke about AOC’s looks.
While Boston University might be better known for alumni in broadcasting (Howard Stern, Bill Simmons, among many others), acting (Geena Davis, Faye Dunaway and Julianne Moore, among many others) and hockey players like “The BU Four” on the 1980 USA Olympic team (Mike Eruzione, Jim Craig, Jack O’Callahan and Dave Silk) and Buffalo Sabres captain Jack Eichel, the university also awarded a doctorate degree to Martin Luther King, Jr., and whenever you think of the impact of traumatic brain injuries, you might want to think of the university that has been running the Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) Center that conducts research on CTE and other long-term consequences of repetitive brain trauma in athletes and military personnel.
So, BU knows scientific and medical research.
Of course BU is a top notch institution in many ways, including in scientific and medical studies. Most people, with even a basic understanding of institutions of higher learning, know that BU has a strong national reputation.
Idiot boy there just took the fact that AOC is one of their alumnus as an opportunity to show his political colors by trying to use that as a slight against the school.
April 14th, 2020 at 11:18 PM ^
"Alumnus" is the male singular form. Nobody is "one of their alumnus." You could say that AOC is "one of their alumni" (male / mixed plural) or "one of their alumnae," (female plural) but not "one of their alumnus."
AOC is an alumna of BU.
alumnus [=] single male
alumnae [=] single female
alumni [=] plural non-gender specific
alumnae [=] plural female
dear lol dad was fluent in Latin and I think took sum courses at UMICH. I had no choice but to learn some.
April 14th, 2020 at 11:14 PM ^
I went to BU my freshman year, then transferred to Michigan sophomore year. This was 1984. My profs at BU were fantastic. Classes were interesting, I never felt like I was a number, or that the professors or TA's were teaching as a means to an end. At Michigan, I sometimes felt that way in certain large classes, that the professor was there to fulfill a duty, rather than for the love of teaching. The students at Michigan were, by and large, more serious about their studies (going to the library on Saturday nights, at least people I knew), more competitive, more focused on the future. Admittedly this is a very small sample size, but BU is a good school.
Wow--I started at BC in fall of '84 and had a friend (crush) from high school who went to BU.
Harbinger. UVA just put out a model today that has Virginia's surge happening in August. We all have to take each model with a grain of salt, but without a vaccine or cure I don't see how any university would want sports to return, let alone with fans. Look how quickly the NBA lost control, this is going to be a weird world for a while. Also, I work with a ton of health care professionals and based on what they are saying, I do not see any way that sports will return this calendar year, and I don't see them returning with fans until a vaccine or proper treatment is developed.
"Surge" probably isn't the right word. They probably won't re-live what NYC/Detroit are going through. "Peak" might describe it - the point at which they have their most hospitalized people at any given time, but not necessarily a huge increase from now.
The fundamental point of a lockdown is simply to buy time for the health system - by acquiring more supplies, ramping up testing, developing better medicine/treatment strategies. If it can bring the curve all the way down so that we're down to isolated clusters here and there, that'd be awesome but I don't think that's very likely. What is more likely IMO is that the curve gets low enough, the health system is deemed ready enough and enough messaging is out (wear masks, keep safe distance) that we try to just roll with a semi-open society for awhile.
Exactly. Most anybody that was going to get this in a severe way has had it. Time to move on.
I know a lot of people with severe medical conditions that have done social distancing for the past month. Unless this virus has a vaccine, they are just as vulnerable two months from now as they are now.
April 14th, 2020 at 11:35 PM ^
Or, in 2 years.....
Most anybody that was going to get this in a severe way has had it.
I'm (charitably) trying to figure out what you mean. Do you have the sense that everyone in the population has been exposed to it? If not, how do you that there won't be more severe cases as more people encounter it?
That is such an ignorant comment!
August????? Seriously - WTF????
I mean - people can build models, but they need to check whether their results actually make intuitive sense.
(1) US new daily cases is just about its peak - it may actually be a few days behind it.
(2) Not all the states are on the same trajectory - Virginia is admittedly still not at their peak. But that's because their curve is shifted a bit on the x-axis, NOT because their curve is fundamentally shaped different vs. any other state.
(3) I'm fairly confident in predicting that Virginia - and basically all the states - will be beyond their peak within the next 10 days.
(4) In Europe --- the countries that we always heard about back in March, those we were "2 weeks behind" --- nearly everybody is beyond their peak in daily new cases. The UK is still rounding the curve, but they are the exception vs. the rule. EVEN TURKEY, which is doing a terrible job in managing this, is seeing their numbers start to plateau. Russia's numbers are a disaster, but that's not surprising. I hope we're not comparing ourselves to them.
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So, how the hell is it possible that (1) we continue what we're doing, and (2) Virginia doesn't peak until August?
I'm not taking this out on you - but some of these models are predicting ridiculous things (the Imperial College Model, the IMHE Model), but nobody is doing any intuitive sense-checks on them.
I am not in the US, but from afar, people appear to be approaching this thing a lot less responsibly than the European countries that have peaked. Churches are still holding large in-person meetings. Wtf!
Where I live, Americans are definitely approaching this responsibly.
The numbers would bear this out too - American curves (daily new cases) look a lot like the curves of the Western European countries that got hit the hardest the earliest, except shifted from 1-2 weeks on the x-axis.
(1) The USA, as of yesterday, had a 9.57 doubling time. This increased from the 6.20 doubling time of a week prior (3.37 day increase).
(2) Italy's doubling time was 9.41 on March 30. 13 days prior. This increased from 5.90 on March 23 (increase of 3.31).
(3) Spain's doubling time was 9.65 on April 6. 7 days prior. This increased from 5.76 on March 30 (increase of 3.89).
(4) Germany's doubling time was 9.15 on April 5. 8 days prior. This increased from 5.45 on March 29 (increase of 3.7).
(5) Switzerland's doubling time was 9.61 on April 4. 9 days prior. This increased from 6.45 on March 28 (increase of 3.16).
(6) Austria's doubling time was 9.67 on April 4. 9 days prior. This increased from 4.96 on March 28 (increase of 4.71).
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Mathematically, if you can increase your doubling time by >0.5 per day (3.5 per week), you will have your new daily cases start to decrease. The 5 EU countries are there today, and we will be there soon (our curve is just 7-14 days behind theirs).
If you are basing doubling times in confirmed cases, how do you factor in increases in testing?
I'm not. It's simply confirmed cases.
Testing numbers can sometimes be a bit hit or miss to get (Michigan, for instance, is updating their testing #s sporadically at best). But it looks like total tests isn't decreasing by day in most places. Sometimes it's not increasing either, but it's at least not decreasing.
April 15th, 2020 at 12:17 AM ^
Testing is supposedly slowing down
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/14/coronavirus-testing-delays-186883
The number of coronavirus tests analyzed each day by commercial labs in the U.S. plummeted by more than 30 percent over the past week, even though new infections are still surging in many states and officials are desperately trying to ramp up testing so the country can reopen.
One reason for the drop-off may be the narrow testing criteria that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last revised in March. The agency’s guidelines prioritize hospitalized patients, health care workers and those thought to be especially vulnerable to the disease, such as the elderly. Health providers have been turning away others in part due to shortages of the swabs used to collect samples.
If the pool of people needing tests in the group that meets the criteria is going down, that is still a great sign.
Churches are still holding large in-person meetings. Wtf!
Most churches are not, in fact, doing this. But they don't make the news.
Today the U.S. is reporting 24,632 new cases. That sounds like a ton - but it's only 4.2% growth from yesterday. Daily growth in cases is really slowing down, in nearly every state. Social distancing is paying off.
It doesn’t matter man. This shit ceased making any sense about an hour after the first person uttered “flatten the curve.” It was clearly never about that or none of this would be happening. For one reason or another, it has been decided that we are canceling our culture and starting something else.
Perhaps global warming is far worse than we know and an immediate course correction is necessary without alerting the public. Perhaps we have created a world that cannot be financially self-sufficient in the future for the global population and the economic system is being destroyed and replaced. In any case, there does not appear that anything can be done about it, I guess I just wish we could go golfing or take our kids swimming or something while it was occurring instead of reading ever increasingly insane bullshit on a daily basis and having to nod along like it makes any fucking sense at all.
The one thing I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is not happening because of a virus that targets almost exclusively elderly people that has a mortality rate of likely less than 1% including that vulnerable population. That is for damn sure.
I'm not going anywhere near that far.
I said this elsewhere - CoronaVirus is ultimately a 3 Act play. Both here and in Europe:
(1) Virus upsurges, economy concurrently contracts.
(2) The initial actions were successful in containing the upsurge - now a discussion on the risks and rewards of "economy vs. virus" and "safety and liberty" as we move forward.
(3) We come out of those discussions and settle into a "new normal" over time, with the eventuality of herd immunity and/or a vaccine.
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Two things that makes me hopeful about what I am seeing from Europe:
(1) Logic is a strong part of the Act 2 discussions.
(2) Conversely, politics seem to have been nearly absent from the response and discussion over there.
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However, if we're being honest about America --- we're the opposite. Act 2 will become more political and less logical. There are powerful folks who see this as an "opportunity." That makes me fearful. I've said this before: this could get violent soon.
Just to make sure I’m following this correctly, dozens of independent states and countries, many which have radically different political persuasions, have all conspired to shut down their economies at great cost, so they can covertly fight global warming? Do I have that right?
or maybe, just maybe, there’s a significant medical risk, that the experts almost universally agree on, and that’s why basically the whole world is all social distancing right now.
All I can tell you is that I had to go into my office in Detroit today and there are dozens of medical tents set up on the streets that aren’t even manned/stocked and appear as little more than a prop and tumbleweeds blowing around at TCF. There is nobody there. I don’t think any Michigan hospital is being overwhelmed by this, at least not from what actual doctors at Michigan hospitals have told me flat out. They have what they need. The medical community is not being overwhelmed by this event.
Perhaps the rhetoric and the apparent realities will match up eventually but they just don’t right now. We should be social distancing based on what we know of the virus but the massive societal upheaval being promoted is far disproportionate and just doesn’t make sense. Think of me what you want. There are a lot of people that feel this way.
90% + hospitals in this country are not Covid overwhelmed. Social distancing has had the desired effect. Hospitals are Halloween empty and healthcare workers are furloughed. Most people’s healthcare needs are on hold right now.
We certainly can’t stay at home forever and need to open society up sooner than later. You could file me in the waiting to long will be more damaging to society than starting back to early. It’s definitely complicated and not a one size fits all solution. Life is risk.
My fear is we are paralyzed by fear and politics. Nobody (well most) wants to be painted as not having empathy towards human life. There will be significant loss if we hide out for too long. If people want to stay home until we have a medical solution they should. That’s what I would recommend to my parents.