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Post by bfoley82 on Mar 4, 2021 18:48:22 GMT -5
Six positives today. Thirteen positives March 1 - 4. highest number of positives over a four day period since Jan 23-26, with 14, and when freshmen (likely infected at home) were arriving on campus. Worrying trend, as this is a mid-week spike, and not a spike on a Monday following a typical weekend when little testing is done. And two athletic programs have been shutdown in the last three days...
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Post by Crucis#1 on Mar 4, 2021 19:50:17 GMT -5
Not unexpected considering the number of programs currently either wrapping up their seasons or launching new seasons over the last 10 days.
Football, Men and Women's Basketball, Men and Women’s Ice Hockey, Men and Women’s Lacrosse, Men and Women’s Soccer, Baseball, Softball, Field Hockey, Men and Women’s Track, Volleyball, Men and Women’s Cross Country are all in training currently at the Hart Center.
The overwhelming majority of schools in various leagues and conferences are not running as a robust slate of teams simultaneously especially during the pandemic. Even within the Patriot League, several schools do not have Baseball, Softball, Track and Field and Volleyball. Outside of the Ivy League and NESCAC, that are not in competition this year, many schools run a minimum of teams. An example, from the Big East, is Creighton, which only supports a total of six men’s teams before the constraints of a pandemic.
Easy to criticize by some, typing from their keyboards, but very difficult to administer safely if you are monitoring day by day operations on Mt. St. James.
One should commend and not condemn the effort that is underway this semester by the entire staff in the Hart Center. It is not an easy job!
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Post by longsuffering on Mar 4, 2021 20:10:55 GMT -5
I commend! Perhaps the mini spike is due to variants that are more transmissible. It's hard to get an exact definition of what that phrase "more transmissible" means but perhaps it means that the amount of virus that escapes the masks of two people nearby each other before wouldn't be enough to cause transmission but now is.
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Mar 5, 2021 7:26:38 GMT -5
HC's COVID dashboard is maintained by a third party, and it was off-line for much of Thursday. The Commonwealth collects COVID data daily from colleges and universities in Massachusetts and aggregates the data for the state's daily dashboard. Massachusetts may be the only state that breaks out tests and cases for higher education.
The HC dashboard is again functioning, and the number of positive tests yesterday was seven, making it 14 positives Monday-Thursday. The available isolation and quarantine capacity remains at 75 percent. The number of tests done Mon-Thurs was 3410.
The mid-week spike in cases is suggestive, but not conclusive, of a spread emanating from off-campus party(ies) this past weekend. Typical lag time between exposure and positive tests is 3-5 days. _______________ For colleges and universities in Massachusetts, for the seven days ending March 3rd, there were 479 positive tests, these tests cover students, faculty, and staff. For the seven days ending March 3rd, colleges and universities performed 268,235 tests. Colleges and universities in Massachusetts have performed 5,078,000 tests to date.
The seven day average of positive tests at colleges and universities is 0.3 percent, which is where HC is presently. HC, for many weeks, was below the statewide percentage for colleges and universities.
For Holy Cross, the number of faculty and staff positives is 45, an increase of two since Jan 30.
HC's weekly update will be published later today. The update should indicate how many of the students testing positive reside on-campus and off-campus. _____________ The risk of community spread in Worcester has decreased sharply from early February. Worcester is back in yellow, having been in red for much of the early part of this year; the 14 day average positive percentage, through March 3, is 1.52 percent. (For the two week period ending January 26, Worcester's positive test percentage rate was 6.02 percent).
These values increase the likelihood that this new cluster of cases at HC emanated from within the school, and not from the larger Worcester community.
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Mar 5, 2021 10:42:05 GMT -5
Updated to indicate that the total number of tests for March 4 was 1517, and the two day total (March 3 and 4) is 2562, which is pretty much the entire student body in Worcester at this time. From a look at The Jo webcam, another heavy round of testing being done today.
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Mar 7, 2021 8:31:39 GMT -5
Friday's update from HC, excerpted: Re: Athletics
On March 7, the percentage of isolation and quarantine space available was at 69 percent; it had dropped to 50 percent on March 4-5.
6210 tests were done March 1-6.
Students who volunteer to help at a vaccination clinic will be vaccinated.
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Post by longsuffering on Mar 8, 2021 0:25:40 GMT -5
Friday's update from HC, excerpted: Re: Athletics On March 7, the percentage of isolation and quarantine space available was at 69 percent; it had dropped to 50 percent on March 4-5. 6210 tests were done March 1-6. Students who volunteer to help at a vaccination clinic will be vaccinated. Massachusetts has so many exceptions and loopholes to the age based priority system for vaccinations. Holy Cross students who volunteer should be men and women for others, not line jumpers who take a vaccine ahead of a more vulnerable person. Imo, they should wait their turn based on the science of who is most at risk and who is less at risk. I say this as someone who has two friends over sixty-five who each have co-morbidities and have been working the web and the phone with no luck getting an appointment as of Friday.
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Mar 8, 2021 8:09:01 GMT -5
^^^ I think the standard protocol is that individuals who work at a vaccination site as well as those who work at a testing site, i.e., administering tests, are vaccinated. These sites are very conscious of the risk posed by those in line. For example, I was told that if you arrive at an indoor vaccination site in DC and aren't wearing a sufficiently protective mask, you are issued a new one. And your temperature is taken; temperature too high? Home, you go. And the chair one sits in for 15 minutes after receiving the shot is antiseptically wiped down after you are released to go home.
As of this morning, 21 percent of the MA population has received at least one shot. (Don't think the total yet includes J&J's vaccine, which has shipped only a few thousand doses, and the total does not include shots given to veterans by the VA. Nationally, the VA has administered 2.7 million doses.) CT is at 24 percent, RI is at 22 percent. New England states have jumped to the front of the pack in vaccinating.
The state of Massachusetts weekly compiles the total number of vaccine doses shipped to a county as a percentage of the county's population. As of March 2nd, the percentage for Worcester County was 19.3 percent. Berkshire was 31.8 percent. Suffolk was 73.3 percent (vaccinators 'in' Suffolk are surely vaccinating many individuals who are not county residents).
This week, MA is allocated 313,000 doses, half of the doses are reserved for second shot of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. MA had about 325,000 / 350,000 doses already on-hand. (No numbers for J&J.) I believe even more doses will arrive the week following. I would think that MA will be working through the cohort between ages 65 and 74 pretty quickly at this point. ______________________ No clearer demonstration of masks and social distancing. The flu season that never was.
Stat, Morning Rounds daily newsletter
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Post by longsuffering on Mar 8, 2021 9:31:26 GMT -5
Good point that the volunteers are vaccinated to protect those in line.
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Mar 9, 2021 17:16:59 GMT -5
In a conference call of PL presidents late last week, Boston University's president, which runs its own testing lab, said that genomic tests of positive tests indicated that 50 percent of the infections are of the more infectious UK variant. The Superintendent of the USNA, which also does genomic testing, said that they were seeing a similar percentage.
The UK variant is probably more deadlier.
HC had over 100 students in quarantine late last week.
Five more positive tests at HC today (so far), brining the total for the week to seven students.
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Mar 9, 2021 17:40:41 GMT -5
As of now, Class of 2021's commencement is planned for Fitton Field. Each graduate allowed two guests.
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Post by hcpride on Mar 14, 2021 10:04:18 GMT -5
Well, our friends at Duke are doing worse than us this week Covid-wise. Unknown if there is a connection with their very recent men's hoops decision. And today's AP report has my new favorite euphemism:
DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke University issued a quarantine order for all of its undergraduates effective Saturday night due to a coronavirus outbreak caused by students who attended recruitment parties, the school said. The university said in a statement that all undergraduate students will be forced to stay-in-place until at least March 21. Suspension or dismissal from the school are potential punishments for “flagrant or repeat violators.” Over the past week, the school has reported more than 180 positive coronavirus cases among students. There are an additional 200 students who may have been exposed and have been ordered to quarantine. The school said in the statement that the outbreak was “principally driven by students attending recruitment parties for selective living groups.”
There are now a million and one reasons those "selective living groups" are awful and embarrassing. IMHO. Perhaps, to err on the safe side, CDC ought to ban fraternities and sororities for all eternity.
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Mar 19, 2021 6:22:50 GMT -5
The city of Worcester's positivity rate for the past two weeks is commendable, down to 1.18 percent. For comparison, Fordham's positivity rate for the Rose Hill campus population for the past two weeks is 2.77 percent. Fordham tests in-frequently. Fordham characterizes their on-campus population as "on-ground". This population totals 5,198 for the Rose Hill campus. The number of tests for the Rose Hill on-ground population over the past two weeks was 3,282. The number of HC tests Mar 15-18 was 3,425.
Holy Cross' positivity rate for the past 14 days is 0.36 percent, for the past seven days 0.34 percent. 18 student positives over the past seven days. Interpolating the quarantine / isolation capacity available stat (84 percent of the space is available), most of the student positives are either residing off-campus, and/or have few close contacts that would necessitate quarantine.
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Post by mm67 on Apr 2, 2021 15:56:14 GMT -5
Cornell is requiring all students to vaccinate for entry onto the campus.Assume other schools including hopefully HC will do the same. Maybe, some might criticize the schools but I cast my lot with the science based approach of Cornell.
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Post by gks on Apr 2, 2021 16:08:04 GMT -5
Cornell is requiring all students to vaccinate for entry onto the campus.Assume other schools including hopefully HC will do the same. Maybe, some might criticize the schools but I cast my lot with the science based approach of Cornell. I have some reservations about any organization mandating a vaccine that is still only authorized under emergency authorization. And yes I am receiving it.
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Post by longsuffering on Apr 2, 2021 16:14:20 GMT -5
Cornell is requiring all students to vaccinate for entry onto the campus.Assume other schools including hopefully HC will do the same. Maybe, some might criticize the schools but I cast my lot with the science based approach of Cornell. Why not? We share a famous alumnus with the Weill Cornell Medical College who recommends the vaccine. Private college attendance is a choice not a right.
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Apr 2, 2021 17:37:13 GMT -5
Holy Cross requested, in January, that it be designated a mass vaccination site. To my knowledge, the state has not yet responded. Massachusetts allows individuals 18 and older to be vaccinated beginning on April 19.
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Apr 2, 2021 17:38:37 GMT -5
Cornell is requiring all students to vaccinate for entry onto the campus.Assume other schools including hopefully HC will do the same. Maybe, some might criticize the schools but I cast my lot with the science based approach of Cornell. Why not? We share a famous alumnus with the Weill Cornell Medical College who recommends the vaccine. Private college attendance is a choice not a right. The vaccines are being given under an emergency use authorization. You can't mandate that a person be vaccinated under a EUA.
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Post by longsuffering on Apr 2, 2021 18:08:13 GMT -5
Why not? We share a famous alumnus with the Weill Cornell Medical College who recommends the vaccine. Private college attendance is a choice not a right. The vaccines are being given under an emergency use authorization. You can't mandate that a person be vaccinated under a EUA. I'm confused. A college wouldn't be mandating anyone inject anything into their bodies. A college would be limiting acceptance to applicants who have a high school diploma, who have passed a physical exam, who have paid their tuition, and who are vaccinated. There's a big difference isn't there? Perhaps returning students would have a stronger case than incoming students and perhaps a college could allow non vaccinated remote students while limiting campus access to vaccinated students.
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Apr 2, 2021 19:08:27 GMT -5
The vaccines are being given under an emergency use authorization. You can't mandate that a person be vaccinated under a EUA. I'm confused. A college wouldn't be mandating anyone inject anything into their bodies. A college would be limiting acceptance to applicants who have a high school diploma, who have passed a physical exam, who have paid their tuition, and who are vaccinated. There's a big difference isn't there? Perhaps returning students would have a stronger case than incoming students and perhaps a college could allow non vaccinated remote students while limiting campus access to vaccinated students. See you in court. www.statnews.com/2021/02/23/federal-law-prohibits-employers-and-others-from-requiring-vaccination-with-a-covid-19-vaccine-distributed-under-an-eua/
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Post by longsuffering on Apr 2, 2021 20:21:40 GMT -5
Still confused. Nobody is mandating anything. It's like masks - Walmart isn't mandating anyone wear them, they just are only admitting masked shoppers. I am sure it is the same at their membership based Sam's Club warehouse stores where people have paid the annual membership fee (like some students have paid tuition) in advance. Members could get their membership fee refunded but they can't get in without a mask. On the other hand, you strike me as a more knowledgeable non-lawyer than me so wear purple so I can recognize you in court.
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Post by mm67 on Apr 2, 2021 20:34:44 GMT -5
Evidently, the powers that be at Cornell were not as well informed as those on this board. Will Cornell be forced to rescind the requirement? One would think most parents would favor a vaccination requirement by the schools for their kids. However, the law may not allow for this type of requirement. Interesting.
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Post by bfoley82 on Apr 2, 2021 20:35:13 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Apr 2, 2021 22:12:10 GMT -5
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Apr 3, 2021 5:37:13 GMT -5
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