Coronavirus in Massachusetts (Boston, Worcester, Oxford: find a job, expiration, spas)

[wolfgang239]

I haven't looked in awhile but if it was broken down by more meaningful age brackets (daycare age, k-8, high school, college age, up to 30, decade by decade after) it would be easier to draw more educated conclusions. I've seen it 0-18, 20-40, etc which is helpful for certain statistics like mortality but not for transmission. I don't see any evidence that partying beer pong players are the biggest culprits in MA but maybe I missed something.

[GeoffD]

Originally Posted by porterhouse

I’m talking about cases in MA (per this thread). We all know many kids are engaging in risky behavior, as would have many of us at that age if we’re being honest. However, we’re just guessing that this is the primary source of new cases. I’ve seen a few well know examples that account for a handful of cases, that’s it. You’d think Baker and others would be banging their fist if it was all irresponsible kids. It doesn’t add up. As has been the case for months, we need more transparency.

I’d love to be a fly on the wall when Baker is discussing the colleges. With the state colleges, he can at least threaten if they don’t control the students. “The first keg party and your tail is fired”. There are a bunch of private colleges that don’t have a bottomless Harvard endowment fund that would go under. Baker has to at least give them a shot at it. It’s a lose-lose decision.

[GeoffD]

Originally Posted by wolfgang239

I haven't looked in awhile but if it was broken down by more meaningful age brackets (daycare age, k-8, high school, college age, up to 30, decade by decade after) it would be easier to draw more educated conclusions. I've seen it 0-18, 20-40, etc which is helpful for certain statistics like mortality but not for transmission. I don't see any evidence that partying beer pong players are the biggest culprits in MA but maybe I missed something.

That’s because the colleges pulled the plug in March. It’s hard to play beer pong when the dorm is closed. That changes over the next two weeks.

[wolfgang239]

Originally Posted by GeoffD

That’s because the colleges pulled the plug in March. It’s hard to play beer pong when the dorm is closed. That changes over the next two weeks.

So the numbers in MA are due to students at colleges that have been closed since March? I'm not really following that logic. Teens I could maybe see but I haven't seen anything indicating that.

[charolastra00]

Originally Posted by GeoffD

And certainly anecdotal evidence anywhere I go. Teens and early 20-somethings move in packs like always and you won’t ever see a mask if parents aren’t around.

I can't say that's been my experience. My university had more than 100 who had to stay from March on through the summer due to various reasons (lots of students with nowhere to go, not able to get on international flights, parents who live in 1 bedroom apartments, etc) and mask compliance was near 100% - even outside and on the sidewalks surrounding campus. Many of them worked both on campus and off and a few were exposed at their jobs, but we had no outbreaks.



Part of my job is responding to social media for the university. From 10pm to about 3am for the past week, I've been getting floods of DMs from students reporting groups of 4 or 5 students who are all masked but standing too close to each other. Not seeing anything like what we saw at Syracuse. That's not to say its not happening somewhere in the state or that it won't happen, but I think we're lucky that our classes started later than many in the South.



I definitely get the sense that many college students are watching what happened to Notre Dame and UNC and really don't want the same thing to happen to them - especially international students and students from far away.


Not all college aged kids think they're untouchable. And if I'm in a store with someone who pulls their mask down, it's always someone in their 50s on up and never a teenager. I wish the teenagers in my neighborhood would stand further apart when they walk, but even their little roaming groups of 3 or 4 are all masked - even on the hottest days of the year.

[Shrewsburried]

Originally Posted by charolastra00

I definitely get the sense that many college students are watching what happened to Notre Dame and UNC and really don't want the same thing to happen to them - especially international students and students from far away.

I think you're being rather optimistic.

Notre Dame entry has a 1400 SAT score floor and, despite all theoretical intelligence within, the outcome was comically bad. I've heard direct reports from a friends on staff there ... student compliance was horrendous and the admin response even more horrendous.

There's no reason to believe Boston institutions will be any better.

[Urban Peasant]

Originally Posted by Shrewsburried

Anyone expecting otherwise either never attended higher ed or was a puritanical commuter.

The sheer amount of illegal debauchery which I witnessed .... and perhaps even partook in ... while living on Mission Hill has me laughing at the notion Northeastern or any Boston institution will curb behavior with lofty threats.

Heh heh. I was one of those puritanical commuters two decades ago, among the last of a dying breed at that time. I attended Northeastern for undergraduate studies, at around 7 each evening when everyone else was sitting down to a buffet meal at an on-campus dining hall, I was waiting for the MBTA bus at Ruggles to take me home. I never drank alcohol all of my years there, never smoked or did drugs, and for parties, they were calm get-togethers often with a club or student organization. The latest I stayed on campus was 10pm and never participated in any raves or off campus parties. At one time that was considered model student behavior but times I guess have changed and commercialism/materialism has set in. You're probably right, a large percentage of college kids I bet are the opposite and would do stupid irresponsible things that would put them in harms way even during this pandemic.

[GeoffD]

Originally Posted by Shrewsburried

I think you're being rather optimistic.

Notre Dame entry has a 1400 SAT score floor and, despite all theoretical intelligence within, the outcome was comically bad. I've heard direct reports from a friends on staff there ... student compliance was horrendous and the admin response even more horrendous.

There's no reason to believe Boston institutions will be any better.

I’d say delusional rather than optimistic. In Boston, 2/3 of students live off campus. There’s no control. A 19 year old with a case of beer doesn’t make good decisions.

[redplum33]

The daily new cases in the US are half of what they were a month ago.

[jayrandom]

Originally Posted by GeoffD

I’d say delusional rather than optimistic. In Boston, 2/3 of students live off campus. There’s no control. A 19 year old with a case of beer doesn’t make good decisions.

A 19 year old with a case of beer has already made at least one bad decision.