>> Even ignoring the party culture, students will come to class sick out of fear. I've felt bad doing this in the past but the unwritten expectation for classes with attendance is "show up unless you literally can't walk". If you actually reach out to the prof, they'll tell you to stay home but most students will just assume the worst and try to show up.

You touch on two good points. I've been both the student and the prof. When a kid comes to class sweating, barely awake and obviously unwell, too many profs assume that they are simply hung over from the night before. I think that is root of show-up-if-you-can-walk. But my reality as a student was totally different (UBC late 90s->early 00s). Most kids didn't party. Most didn't drink more than once a month. There was a core of frat kids who lived like animal house, but the vast majority of us were too busy. We had jobs. We had to study. We had to commute in to school each day. We spent the weekends skiing or rock climbing, not passing out on the floor.

I had a fulltime job. The one time I fell asleep in class my prof asked me what was wrong. I said I was "up late last night". He assumed I meant that was out partying. The reality was that something broke at work. I had to work into the small hours. My prof had not even considered that I had a real job (not a part-time waiter) totally outside of school. We need to get past such dated assumptions about "students".

I agree with the other stuff, but I definitely think, at least for now, the culture on showing up sick has changed. If you go into public, especially show up in an enclosed space and have so much as the sniffles, you are going to be run out pretty quickly.

It varies wildly. Especially amidst young people, many of whom feel that the virus is not a big risk for them due to their age group. One young friend of mine recently expressed that they want to get sick, because they're sick (pun intended) of living in social isolation and constant vigilance.

>> One young friend of mine recently expressed that they want to get sick

I am hearing this more and more. Whether it is for future "immunity passports" or just to get past all the fear, many young people see COVID-19 as inevitable. Better to get it now during lockdown than after everyone heads back to work/school.

One thing that is cropping up is the fact that young people really do not appreciate old people telling them what to do with their bodies. Grandma telling you to disinfect your hands is one thing. Grandma telling you that you aren't allowed in the same room as your boy/girlfriend for the next year is another. Listening to the police talk about the parties they break up, they sound like chaperones at a school dance trying to enforce a no-touching rule.

I can appreciate the sentiment and have said something to that effect myself, but as a parent post rightly pointed out -- the onset of severe, hospitalisation-worthy or fatal illness is basically a coin toss. Yes, it seems to be more likely in older people, but it is far from unheard of in younger people.

Furthermore, there's still a great deal of uncertainty as to what chronic or long-term effects infection can visit even upon those who recover. While most accounts of that concern those who suffered serious complications, it's far from clear that those with mild symptoms can't be affected similarly.

Realistically, going out of one's way to get infected is dangerously irrational with as little as we still know.

Reminds me of "chicken pox parties" in the 80s and 90s. Which we have now learned are a terrible idea.

Except that a statistically huge number of people have gotten this and recovered. 1 in 6 people in London has recovered (as reported by antibody testing). Those people certainly know how it will impact them. We are no longer in the "we don't know" phase. As for long term health, this seems no different than any other pneumonia which can have measurable effects for years.

This is untrue. The Kawasaki-like inflammation in children and increased stroke risk in all patients after recovery are far more serious than pneumonia recovery. We have no clue about long term effects because the disease is new, nor the duration or extent of immunity.

I am trying to understand this comment in this context. The commentor above you talks about the statistical fact that cases under in younger people are not only rarer, but very low chance of getting hospitalized, and an even lower chance of death.

You then respond with an anecdote of experience talking about the potential outcomes of this virus. Why exactly is this? Of course there are terrible potential outcomes in everyday actions we take. We might face a car crash, we might get hit by lightning. Why should we treat this matter any different than that?

Only difference I see being is that this is infectious, and with the professors usually being of older age, there should definitely be some protections in place. But lets at least shift towards talking about being infectious, and not talking about plainly getting COVID, because the implications of that are on complete different scales of magnitude depending on your personal charasterstics.

Also, you seem to talk in your latter parts of the comment about things that are not set in stone. E.g. Class attendance could be made nonmandatory and not affect grades. Also, parties could on campus could be restricted.

> commentor above you talks about the statistical fact

No, the commenter above talked about the "risk", and cited that one fact. Both of you are forgetting that sick people are infectious. We're trying to control an epidemic here, not save the lives of some particular GT students. If they get sick they'll make others sick. One of those cases might be your grandfather.

I am not sure if you read my comment through. I mentioned sick people being infectious, and urged the discussion to move towards how sick people infect others, and how long they are infectious.

I would love to learn more about how sick people transmit the disease, and when are they the most "infectious". I have heard something related to a period of few days before showing first symptoms, but I have yet to discover more indepth discussion around it.

For example, its pretty hard for me to undertand how you can be "very infectious" when you do not exhibit symptoms such as coughing or sneezing. Would love to learn more!

I like your phrase "statistical fact". I don't really know what you mean when you use it, but thinking back on my statistics class, I think it's a pretty funny turn of phrase.

By that phrase I mean "The risk is so incredibly low though". Which to me is a statistical fact. But I think I get what you mean - statistics/data can be combined with language or visuals to enforce multiple different interpretations.

> the statistical fact that cases under in younger people are not only rarer, but very low chance of getting hospitalized, and an even lower chance of death

What are the latest — preferably peer-reviewed — figures on hospitalization and death rate by age? I was trying to find them the other day, but all I could find was papers from many months ago.