OT(?):UConn send warning email to transition to online classes/ closing campus.

[Ajs120102]

 

[Edward Sargent]

Many schools have done this

 

[Dream Jobbed 2.0]

My liver is still recovering from the stretch between spring break and graduation 10 years ago. Keeping kids healthy in more ways than 1

 

[Ajs120102]

It’s going to get cancelled. For sure

 

[Sonofabeach]

Have to wonder about UHart too, my son goes there. Then my food shopping list goes way up

 

[Dream Jobbed 2.0]

Have to wonder about UHart too, my son goes there. Then my food shopping list goes way up

If there’s any food to buy!!!

 

[Palatine]

Considering that college age kids rarely have anything except mild cases of coronavirus it seems to be an abundance of caution. The focus needs to be on nursing homes and assisted living.

 

[Dream Jobbed 2.0]

Considering that college age kids rarely have anything except mild cases of coronavirus it seems to be an abundance of caution. The focus needs to be on nursing homes and assisted living.

The professors, family and other staff can get very sick from a mildly sick 20 year old.

 

[methodology]

This is happening everywhere. Know people in school in nyc and Boston whose schools are only doing online classes for the time being

 

[NJHusky]

I don't understand why we don't do this every flu season too...could save 20K lives

 

[Chin Diesel]

I don't understand why we don't do this every flu season too...could save 20K lives

The whole scare tactic is a scheme by white collar workers so they can work from home and for industry to show why automation is safer than humans in factories. Machines don't catch and spread corona. This is class warfare using "health" as a conduit to affect change in industries. Needless to say those whose skillset requires them to physically show up to work will be most affected by this scare.

On a less serious note, I expect close to 100% of all high school and college students to fully support online classes and 100% of working parents to support sending kids back to school. 8-10 hours per day of tax payer funded daycare is a helluva social construct we have going right now.

 

[CL82]

My liver is still recovering from the stretch between spring break and graduation 10 years ago. Keeping kids healthy in more ways than 1

It never really comes all the way back. The good news is that you won't need embalming fluid for it.

 

[McLovin]

The whole scare tactic is a scheme by white collar workers so they can work from home and for industry to show why automation is safer than humans in factories. Machines don't catch and spread corona. This is class warfare using "health" as a conduit to affect change in industries. Needless to say those whose skillset requires them to physically show up to work will be most affected by this scare.

On a less serious note, I expect close to 100% of all high school and college students to fully support online classes and 100% of working parents to support sending kids back to school. 8-10 hours per day of tax payer funded daycare is a helluva social construct we have going right now.

This is one of the more interesting takes I’ve heard bout the virus...

 

[ctchamps]

The whole scare tactic is a scheme by white collar workers so they can work from home and for industry to show why automation is safer than humans in factories. Machines don't catch and spread corona. This is class warfare using "health" as a conduit to affect change in industries. Needless to say those whose skillset requires them to physically show up to work will be most affected by this scare.

On a less serious note, I expect close to 100% of all high school and college students to fully support online classes and 100% of working parents to support sending kids back to school. 8-10 hours per day of tax payer funded daycare is a helluva social construct we have going right now.

Hopefully your first paragraph was facetious. Lot of factors contributing to the reaction. The one you mention would be low on the list of my factors.

On a lighter note it's only paranoia if it doesn't kill you.

If we could trust the numbers out of China and a reliable test of the disease had been available when the disease first broke out we would have a better handle on how to react. But even then there would still be unknowns to reliably assess a course of action.

@NJHusky the numbers were 49,000 fatalities from the flu last year and 97,000 the year before. The fear is always a pandemic of the 1917 variety in which 1/3 the population in the world at that time became infected and at least 25 million to 50 million fatalities occurred. New studies have significantly raised those numbers.

@Palatine viruses don't self determine. Viruses are accidental molecules that randomly find, attach to, penetrate a cell membrane, and then "subvert" a host's reproductive machinery to make massive quantities of these molecules. They then destroy that cell, releasing themselves to repeat the process in other cells. If enough cells get destroyed the conscious host recognizes the invasion in the form of symptoms. The fewer the number of destroyed cells the less the symptoms.

If a host accidentally alters a critical part of that molecule when producing the viruses there can be a change in the expression of the virus molecule. This can result in a different host becomes susceptible (different age group of a species or more rarely as was the case of this virus a different species), or the contagion rate could change or the mortality numbers change. Sometimes these molecules get mutated to a less virulent form. Let's hope that's what happens in this case. MERs with a mortality rate of 35%, SARs with a mortality rate of 10%, the flu with a mortality rate of between 0.1% and 2.0% are all essentially the same molecule as the 2019-nCoV virus which is responsible for the COVID-19 disease being discussed in this thread. They are more similar to one another than dogs which have a tremendous variety of characteristics but we all recognize as dogs.

Given the information of the previous paragraph it become difficult to predict ahead of time how this virus will impact humanity on a biological level. Hind sight will prove someone had it correctly ahead of time. I'd have to read how they could have determined that to accept that it wasn't more than just a guess.

 

[glastonbury50]

Wish this happened when I was in college.

 

[Tenspro2002]

On a less serious note, I expect close to 100% of all high school and college students to fully support online classes and 100% of working parents to support sending kids back to school. 8-10 hours per day of tax payer funded daycare is a helluva social construct we have going right now.

You might not be serious, but this gets at a very serious issue, which is child care.

If schools and daycares close, you're going to have a ____load of parents who are all of a sudden unable to work, or split working time with their spouse, because they have to take care of their kids. The economy works only because school and daycare free up time for working parents to, you know, work.

That's gonna shine an awfully bright light on an issue (affordable childcare) that gets basically negligible attention in our political discussions. And I say that as someone paying 3K/month for daycare.

 

[AreBee1969]

Interesting to see how my daughter is going to do her nursing labs on-line. I'm not taking any needles that I don't have to!

 

[Rocktheworld]

This is one of the more interesting takes I’ve heard bout the virus...

I cracked up when he started the second paragraph “on a less serious note” because I thought the whole first paragraph was a joke

 

[BlueMAB]

The professors, family and other staff can get very sick from a mildly sick 20 year old.

And can spread it to their parents, aunts, uncles, kids... who then spread it to....

oh never mind, it's all fake news.

 

[BlueMAB]

Sometimes I wish my kids would stay at school 10 hours a day. Those 3 extra hours of peace and quiet at home would be priceless.

 

[Chin Diesel]

You might not be serious, but this gets at a very serious issue, which is child care.

If schools and daycares close, you're going to have a ____load of parents who are all of a sudden unable to work, or split working time with their spouse, because they have to take care of their kids. The economy works only because school and daycare free up time for working parents to, you know, work.

That's gonna shine an awfully bright light on an issue (affordable childcare) that gets basically negligible attention in our political discussions. And I say that as someone paying 3K/month for daycare.

Fully aware of what kids forced to be at home do with parents time and money.

Wait until you find out child care tax credits stop when your kids hit 12 or 13 and you are paying a couple of hundred bucks a week for summer camps.

Also, if schools close and kids are left home alone while parents are at work, internet bandwidth is going to be crushed and certain websites will be crashing with the amount of video streaming being consumed by teenage boys.

 

[g_smith]

Hopefully your first paragraph was facetious. Lot of factors contributing to the reaction. The one you mention would be low on the list of my factors.

On a lighter note it's only paranoia if it doesn't kill you.

If we could trust the numbers out of China and a reliable test of the disease had been available when the disease first broke out we would have a better handle on how to react. But even then there would still be unknowns to reliably assess a course of action.

@NJHusky the numbers were 49,000 fatalities from the flu last year and 97,000 the year before. The fear is always a pandemic of the 1917 variety in which 1/3 the population in the world at that time became infected and at least 25 million to 50 million fatalities occurred. New studies have significantly raised those numbers.

@Palatine viruses don't self determine. Viruses are accidental molecules that randomly find, attach to, penetrate a cell membrane, and then "subvert" a host's reproductive machinery to make massive quantities of these molecules. They then destroy that cell, releasing themselves to repeat the process in other cells. If enough cells get destroyed the conscious host recognizes the invasion in the form of symptoms. The fewer the number of destroyed cells the less the symptoms.

If a host accidentally alters a critical part of that molecule when producing the viruses there can be a change in the expression of the virus molecule. This can result in a different host becomes susceptible (different age group of a species or more rarely as was the case of this virus a different species), or the contagion rate could change or the mortality numbers change. Sometimes these molecules get mutated to a less virulent form. Let's hope that's what happens in this case. MERs with a mortality rate of 35%, SARs with a mortality rate of 10%, the flu with a mortality rate of between 0.1% and 2.0% are all essentially the same molecule as the 2019-nCoV virus which is responsible for the COVID-19 disease being discussed in this thread. They are more similar to one another than dogs which have a tremendous variety of characteristics but we all recognize as dogs.

Given the information of the previous paragraph it become difficult to predict ahead of time how this virus will impact humanity on a biological level. Hind sight will prove someone had it correctly ahead of time. I'd have to read how they could have determined that to accept that it wasn't more than just a guess.

Thanks for this science lesson. I learned something today on a basketball message board and it wasn’t about basketball.

 

[NJHusky]

@NJHusky the numbers were 49,000 fatalities from the flu last year and 97,000 the year before. The fear is always a pandemic of the 1917 variety in which 1/3 the population in the world at that time became infected and at least 25 million to 50 million fatalities occurred. New studies have significantly raised those numbers.

I'm not a Dr, but I don't believe I'm overly gullible either...Do you REALLY believe that > 25% (%based on 1918 #'s) of the current world's population will die if we go out in public places??? REALLY?? With today's medical knowledge? More people died from the flu THIS YEAR ALREADY in the US alone than have died from this GLOBALLY!

There have been MANY Dr.s saying more people than have been reported had the virus and didn't even know they had it and weren't even showing symptoms....so this thing does not have a 25% mortality rate. my guess is it doesn't even have a 1% mortality rate. The wife and kids of the hospitalized NY lawyer aren't showing any signs even though they are infected. "She has also tested positive for the virus, as has their 20-year-old son and 14-year-old daughter, Gov. Cuomo announced on Wednesday...Other than Lawrence no one else in my family has been sick other than a slight cough." I saw an interview with a woman in her 60's that was in quarantine because of cruise ship infection and she said she felt fine and only had a temp spike to 100.3 for 12 hours...

I'm doing what I can to avoid it. My hands have never been cleaner or covered in more Purell, but I'm living my life...I just came back from a ski trip...the plane was full. I'm going to the gym tonight. But if I get it I don't expect to be a fatality.

Why don't we report every flu case and every flu fatality and panic the hell out of people too? I've not read anything that clearly explains why this is worse...but I've heard Dr's say corona virus is what causes the common cold, but this is a new variant. I'm sorry, the modern media cycle and politics are playing this up big time IMO.

 

[ColchVEGAS]

The whole scare tactic is a scheme by white collar workers so they can work from home and for industry to show why automation is safer than humans in factories. Machines don't catch and spread corona. This is class warfare using "health" as a conduit to affect change in industries. Needless to say those whose skillset requires them to physically show up to work will be most affected by this scare.

On a less serious note, I expect close to 100% of all high school and college students to fully support online classes and 100% of working parents to support sending kids back to school. 8-10 hours per day of tax payer funded daycare is a helluva social construct we have going right now.

I work in automation so hopefully this scare tactic pays off and more manufacturing facilities commit to fully automated lines. They better do it quick though because I have two kids who I will have to keep paying for daycare even if they close and I have to stay home with them rather than peddle my job stealing products.

 

[CL82]

And I say that as someone paying 3K/month for daycare.

You don’t feel comfortable being out on your own yet?