I work out of UW, one of the theories going around was that other schools would be watching to see when UW would close, since we probably have it the worst right now (i.e. "UW isn't even closed yet so how could we close?"). I'm in one of the coworking spaces here and it was pretty empty yesterday and today. I expect it'll be even emptier next week - I won't know since my team has also decided to go remote for the rest of the month.

UW is on a quarter system so finals were supposed to be in two weeks, now professors are mostly making the exams online and some are just cancelling the finals entirely.

Two nearby community colleges also closed yesterday, Bellevue College and Everett Community College.

And two nearby universities as well, Seattle University and Seattle Pacific University.

University of Washington at least had a single positive COVID case in an employee. Stanford seems to have canceled two weeks of classes and quarter-finals without even a single presumptive case on campus?

Presumably all these kids are still living in dorms together and eating together in dining halls...

Stanford is smart. Closing up before cases appear is the very definition of a precaution.

Source: I work at UW, was very perturbed that classes/operations hadn't been cancelled when it was quite clear that a case would eventually appear.

Data analysis of the Spanish flu seems to indicate that it is indeed smart to close before cases appear. A pretty good analysis here: https://twitter.com/NAChristakis/status/1235204443362205699

Calling it Spanish Flu (instead of 1918 pandemic) were it had no relationship with Spain..

It’s not so simple to say “closing before a case is smart.” It’s always before a case.

They have 2 confirmed cases at this point so..

I don’t believe that’s the case, at least at this current moment: There is one confirmed case in the Faculty, and two potential student cases.

Source: https://paloaltoonline.com/news/2020/03/06/stanford-cancels-...

Shall we close everything up then, just in case? Maybe then we should keep everything closed, as a precaution against other infectious diseases, including as-yet-unknown future ones?

No need to invent hypotheticals when we’re dealing with an actual, unfolding crisis.

The cost of closing schools, canceling events, etc, for several weeks would have been very disruptive and expensive. But it stood a chance of containing this.

Now we’re experiencing the beginning of the economic impact plus we’re allowing this to become a pandemic — and probably seasonal. It’s hard to see how the cost won’t be astronomically higher in choosing to react rather than take proactive steps.

And we chose this path with Italy and China already showing us the seriousness of this virus.

When UW's own researchers had shown that there were likely to be at least a few hundred cases in the Seattle area and only tens had been found, the probability that the outbreak would end without reaching campus was already slim.

Even if the starting number is low, as long as the growth rate is consistently exponential that won't last very long. And even if the majority of cases are mild, the hospitalization rate seems to be high enough to overwhelm our capacity (if growth is unchecked) at which point people don't get proper treatment and the statistics get worse.

I think the real measure of if this is under control is the growth rate and not the absolute numbers, since exponential growth will generate big numbers very quickly. If the growth is not under control, slowing it down at the beginning makes a lot of sense compared to later (and buys time for vaccine development).

I'm not an expert so I hope I haven't gotten any of this wrong, but the experts / authorities taking it seriously seems pretty justified.

They announced today that a faculty member of the Stanford School of Medicine tested positive:

https://www.ktvu.com/news/stanford-educator-tests-positive-f...

Don’t have the link on hand but there was a study floating around showing something like a 10x difference in impact for every week early a school closes during a virus outbreak. Seems pretty obvious that closing before a positive case, at which point the cat is kind of out of the bag, is much better than reacting. Especially in the situation we’re in now where the trend is obvious.

Regarding school closures, I believe you're referencing this: https://twitter.com/NAChristakis/status/1235204443362205699

Additionally weather: https://twitter.com/NAChristakis/status/1235963670255071237

That’s a good thread.

The obvious concern is low income families. However, the calculus is whether they’ll be more devastated by the short term closures — or a much longer, much deeper recession if the virus spreads unchecked in the West.

I'm a student at Stanford currently -- not sure how much I could say with much confidence but there's most probably a case on campus. Students have been quarantined.

Alum here. Any special precautions taken at dining halls? At least the great majority of undergrads have to eat at large dining halls like Arrillaga and Lakeside, that seems to be an even greater problem than in-person classes, especially when people reuse dishes. I recall Ricker Dining’s manager occasionally patrolling the dining hall telling people not to reuse dishes back when I was a student living in GovCo. Apparently a lot of people do that.

Afaik all they've done is barred non-students/staff from the dining halls. There might be other precautions being taken that I'm not aware of, however.

> Presumably all these kids are still living in dorms together and eating together in dining halls...

That's a lot better than scattering them to the wind.

There are multiple presumptive cases of students with COVID-19 on campus. They have been quarantined. An email was sent out about this.

Yes, I think UW cancelled on-site classes Friday morning when a staff member tested positive. [1]

[1]: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/university-of-wash...