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Comment by celnardur | Hacker News Reader

I feel like I can offer a unique perspective on this because I go to Notre Dame and we are just finishing the first week of classes with everyone back on campus. It's gone alright so far. All the cases so far have been traced back to off campus bars or parties. However, I expect it to get worse soon as cases start spreading on campus. If you want to see how Notre Dame is doing with cases and testing we have a dashboard here: https://here.nd.edu/our-approach/dashboard/

I really hope we can make this work because, as an electrical engineer, most of my classes can't be moved online.

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So the only way this would work long term is if students on campus don't go to bars to parties?

Yea pretty much. However, I would extend that to off campus students as well because as soon as someone has a really severe case (or dies) then we will probably all be sent home.

Also it's not just bars or parties. You also have to worry about other gatherings. If people don't where masks and social distance those can become a problem as well. However, so far people have been mostly responsible with other on campus gatherings.

Technically it could work if they keep distance and wear masks, but as it looks like this has proven to be pretty difficult for people aged 20-30 so far, mostly because the impact of COVID for them is fairly low.

Or it may work because there’s close to zero chance of dying for college students, and we have far more immune people now than we did back in the spring. Sweden’s numbers are looking very interesting right now.

Why are you ignoring spread?

College students can easily spread it to vulnerable populations.

1. Some live at home.

2. Some will go shopping. Some in places without mask mandates.

3. Older professors and staff (custodial, food services, advisors) will be pressured to work (you probably can't just say "I'm not teaching" without quitting).

4. Some may need to use public transit to get to the school. Again also in some places without mask mandates.

5. And of course, some students are vulnerable. Many schools are not allowing remote work when they open.

Add in dorms being super spreader environments and you've got disasters waiting to happen.

There are a lot fewer people to spread it to now than there was in March.

The USA is over 5M confirmed cases now. The CDC estimates that the true infection count is 6x-24x that. So on the order of 30M - 120M Americans have already had it now.

The distribution is uneven. Places that hadn't gotten hit are getting hit now. But on average we are likely close to herd immunity.

This is no longer an exponential thing here. We can't have an OOM more cases. It's mathematically impossible. The worst is over (again, on average). I don't think we explicitly tried to follow a herd immunity strategy but that is what ended up happening.

1. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar...

Not all college students are 20-30, and not all 20-30 year olds have fully functioning immune systems.

so they should protect themselves and do the lessons online.

it makes no sense to limit everyone else

He never said they were...

There's a lot of immunocompromised and obese students and a lot of senior professors and staff.

but is that reason good enough to take away everyone's right to go to college?

here is where personal responsibility comes into play. If you are concerned stay home. The university and laws should support you.

But the solution is not to punish everyone else, that won't work long term. The sooner people realize that the better. Limiting and collectively taking away people's rights will cause far more trouble long term.

Yes, it's a good enough reason when 1% of the population dies and a substantial population has extended long-term symptoms.

No, it's not being personally responsible. It's collective responsibility.

Personal responsibility in a pandemic is fallacy and idiocy.

Nobody has a right to go to college.

Everybody at every college is saying that it could work if the students behave themselves when they're not in class. Then in the next breath, they say: It can't work.

Oddly enough I went to ND for grad school, though it was many years ago. The campus was isolated from the surrounding town, but not completely isolated.

The numbers, though very few, seem to fit an exponential well, at least thus far.

If you plot and fit the curve to such an exponential, today you should have ~15 cases. Tomorrow ~25 cases. In one week's time, ~380 cases. ND has ~8600 people attending. To get that many cases should be 14 days from today [0], so August 28th.

If these trends continue as is, then ND won't make it to September before closing down.

Still, the data is sparse.

[0] Day 20 is ~6000 cases, day 21 is ~9400 cases, you can round however you'd like.

This just points to the absurdity of the whole situation. I mean in what world should bars be open and universities closed? It’s a complete failure of priorities.

You're right.

The bars should be closed, too.

We should be spending the entire defense budget on paying for people to stay home, stay safe, and to get them what they need; as well as funding as much scientific research as feasible to fight this clear and present danger to our lives and livelihoods.

I grew up in South Bend, and most of the 'Fighting Irish' near campus bars are way too small for social distancing. Pre-covid, all of them were shoulder to shoulder packed with students and locals. Please be careful celnardur. It's a wonderful place and campus, enjoy your time there.

How do you mean it is going alright? Almost 30 students tested positive last week.

Maybe they have mild symptoms?

25% positive test rate is terrible!

That curve ain't flattening

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