Coronavirus in Massachusetts (incorporated, house, schools)

[LeavingMA]

Originally Posted by charolastra00

As one of the people who is partially responsible for reporting the numbers at a local university, it is FAR MORE in our financial interest to be accurate. What do you think will happen if a college gets caught in a lie?


I also think you're nuts if you think that a leaky as a sieve university will manage to keep the numbers buttoned up tight if they're not accurate.

You would first need tests that are actually accurate and work correctly. We are putting way too much emphasis on these tests.

[lrfox]

Originally Posted by msRB311

the numbers were down quite a bit yesterday compared to how they had been.

They've dipped over the past several days, it appears. Hopefully we'll see the dip continue long enough to become a trend.

[lrfox]

Originally Posted by BostonMike7

Wife and I have discussed just going to get tested every 2 weeks even without symptoms. While we have curbed what we do by a lot, we still find ourselves out and about and mingling with people here and there. Our kids are in school/daycare, and both of us at at work. (her 5 days a week teaching, and me 4-5 days in office). We've not been tested since March. Trying to figure out the most hassle-free way to get this done local to us.

I actually don't know anyone in my personal sphere who has been getting tested if not required for work or travel.

My Northeastern student co-op however gets tested every 3 days to the point it's just a routine thing for them to do.

We've had similar conversations. Back in June/July, we were doing it strategically (before/after travel to other states, visiting family, or after eating indoors/meeting with friends). We stopped in August since positive rates were low, we weren't seeing family as much, and we spent most of our time outdoors away from crowds (hiking, quieter beaches, on the boat, etc.). Given the increase in cases, the amount of time indoors (and at the office), we are likely to do it more often again - at least when before we leave the state and/or see family.

[LeavingMA]

https://www.masslive.com/coronavirus...m-nightly.html

Where are the courts to curb this guy's power grab. Let people make up their own mind. And absolutely no reason to wear a mask outside not near anyone. The stupidity is overwhelming. The more they try these ridiculous measures the more people are not going to comply, because they have over reached.

[Shrewsburried]

I hadn't realized Gov Baker maintains 'absolute power'.

[NewfieMama]

In my ideal world, there would be an at-home nose swab that works like a pregnancy test--one line for negative, 2 lines for positive . I could test my family every other day and we'd know definitively that we are COVID-free. I feel like for <$1 a test, the vast majority of people would keep these stocked in their homes and use them regularly.

They just need to exist first...

[yellowstatus]

Baker is making public health decisions in proportion to the risk based on science, and has my full support. What is with the out of state complaints? I don't go to my home state midwest forum and complain about the casual racism or lack of job opportunities.

[msRB311]

I'm not sure what to think of this. I cant say it applies to me since I don't leave the house after 7pm these days and i'm certainly not up before 5am. I feel bad for restaurants, this will hurt them. I guess this seems to be directed at the partiers/late night eaters in restaurants. However people can and still will have parties in their own homes if they want to.

[charolastra00]

Originally Posted by redplum33

Nothing will happen.

From post #6790: "colleges aren't required to provide testing results to the state. Labs are required, but there's a degree of separation there. The only exception that I'm aware of is in New York; their governor is now requiring any college with 100+ positive cases over a 2 week period to provide that info to the state."

It's not like positive cases are disappearing. They all get recorded by the state. They all get attributed to the town/city...just not necessarily to the college.

charolastra, do you think the massive number of recent cases in that age group are nearly all non-students? They must be if you take these college dashboards at face value.

I guess all of these non-students just happened to start having problematic "small private informal gatherings" in September.

Bottom line: All schools and colleges need to be 100% remote.

Yes, I do think that most of the recent cases are either non-students or students who are 100% remote but still hanging out with friends at home or in off-campus apartments. Going remote wouldn't change either demographic's behaviors. In fact, one of the arguments Cornell used to bring their students back to campus was that they could control the students better than if they were 100% remote. If remote, a solid number of students would still crowd into off-campus apartments, and then there'd be no oversight or testing.



Colleges are spending millions if not tens of millions of dollars on frequent testing. While the government might not crack down on them, if it came out that they were lying the consumers certainly would. Parents demanded that their students went back to school, and literally 100,000+ jobs in Massachusetts are riding on that, many of them highly specialized that could not easily transition to another field. But parents also demanded high levels of safety through testing and enforced social distancing. If colleges were lying and it came out, enrollment would drop. That would be the nail in the coffin to many schools, and tens of thousands of jobs.


You seem to have an ax to grind on colleges, when there's still nothing that indicates in-person college has increased spread. I am much more concerned about school kids & personnel who have limited testing available to them (as Stop the Spread is inconvenient and not required) or groups of 20-somethings who live together and are not frequently tested because they either aren't students or are students who are not going to campus because of remote classes.

Originally Posted by msRB311

the numbers were down quite a bit yesterday compared to how they had been.

Numbers are *always* low on Sunday and Monday. It's part of the reason why daily numbers are meaningless in comparison to 3 and 7 day rolling averages.

[msRB311]

well they were over 1000 last Sunday/Monday.

Just tryin to be positive! no pun intended.