Or they could not? Among college-aged folks, Corona has mild symptoms - maybe approaching a bad flu.

When I was at school, we had flu outbreaks. People got sick, their roommates got sick…and no one was tested or quarantined or had to wear masks. Life continued.

What if we just stopped? We could treat Corona outbreaks at schools like cold or flu outbreaks. Would anyone even notice Omicron ripping through the student body if we weren’t obsessively looking? I doubt it.

There are a lot of older (and otherwise susceptible) people on campus. Regardless, no they can’t do that because if something did happen, they’d get blasted.

It’s the same with anything safety-related, really. Driving a car is super unsafe, but rather than banning cars, you wear a seatbelt.

Older people should WFH and be careful. They shouldn’t burden younger generation for their disproportionate susceptibility to this disease.

I know what the next counter argument is: But they will get COVID from their children. Then I guess we should discourage older people from hanging out with anyone without testing and precautions.

Why aren’t we placing burden on older generation to protect themselves?

I am sympathetic to this point, but many of the older people are the professors, ostensibly the reason for students being there in the first place.

Yes, and the professors are also part of the government and financial success of a research-based school. Undergraduate students are perhaps only 50% of the school’s priorities.

> Older people should WFH and be careful.

Do we have or are you pushing for policies requiring WFH accommodations for them? What about people without jobs that can be done remotely, which yes does include a lot of the elderly population.

And careful how? Like for example frequent testing of those around them? Or policies requiring employers to not allow people back to work until they are confirmed non-contagious?

> Older people should WFH and be careful.

Absent any of those policies existing, this line like so so many others in here just reads as "it seems pretty safe for me now so good luck everyone."

I too was in college during a major flu outbreak. I got very sick. It actually changed a lot of operating procedures at my school and was the start of hand sanitizer being everywhere. It also kicked off the increased recommendation of the flu vaccine for everyone.

The CDC has guidance for colleges and universities on how to handle any number of outbreaks. Colleges are following guidance on how to handle Covid-19. Will that guidance change in the future? Probably. But it hasn’t changed yet.

That guidance needs to change now, there is little difference to flu and Corona outbreaks due to the vaccines.

Thus spake someone who has never actually had influenza.

How can you be so sure ?

Because people who've had a bad dose of influenza never call it a bit flu.

I'm not sure what the definition of a bad dose is, but i have never taken any flu shots and have managed just fine.

So with three vaccine shots for Corona, I'd say that the chances of getting seriously ill with the flu is much higher than Corona.

Thus my original point stands, we should start treating Corona the same way we treat the flu, starting now.

There are at least two reasons not to treat Corona outbreaks at schools like cold or flu outbreaks, and TBH even during a flu outbreak, it's reasonable to expect people to get vaccinated, even if it's not required like other vaccines. In some cultures, it's even expected that if you're at all sick, even with the common cold, you'll wear a mask to protect others as well, but I get that that's not the norm in the US or around Stanford.

First, there's not just healthy "college-aged" students on campus. With that in mind, there's a risk that area hospitals could get overloaded with patients. You don't want the hospital to be full when there's a car accident or someone needs their stomach pumped, someone suspects they might have an STD, or whatever. Requiring a booster mitigates that risk as it lessens the symptoms to the point where hospitalization is shorter/unlikely.

Second, there's a chance for a mutation each time the virus spreads from one person to another. For that reason, you don't want it ripping through everyone.

I encourage everyone eligible to get vaccinated, but vaccination won't prevent the virus from ripping through everyone. The primary benefit is reducing severe symptoms.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94646

The current thinking is that mutations are most likely to occur in immunocompromised patients who experience prolonged infections. Vaccines aren't very effective for them.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/covid-variants-ma...

> oo many students/faculty are sick at any given time.

Whats the rate of hospitalization for COVID among students right now? If you dont have that kind of actual data in hand, you can't make a proper decision.

because of the demographics that number should be close to zero, except for students that have multiple comorbidities.

The CDC has guidance for how colleges should handle students who test positive for Covid. You cannot have a student who has tested positive living in the dorms with other students.

You do not need to be in the hospital to be sick, no?

Colleges and schools in general are also very unforgiving of sick time, compared to work.

If you miss a week or two of a difficult class, you may not be able to make up for that lost time in order to pass. With some classes only being offered at specific quarters/semesters and many being impacted, a single failed or dropped class can put you a year behind graduation, assuming you can pay for it. If a professor or teaching assistants gets sick, it would have pretty significant impacts for a larger number of students.

The vaccine doesn’t prevent infection; it mainly prevents death. The other way to interpret this is that they do not want to be responsible for deaths, but are fine with low-risk infections.

I anecdotally know people who had a booster and were still subsequently infected. Packing 200 people in a room over 100 days and these rare cases will happen.