Harvard Will Allow Some Students on Campus This Fall So Long as They Take Coronavirus Tests Every 3 Days (cnbc.com) 87
Harvard University is welcoming freshmen and some other students back to campus this fall semester, but students will have to take coronavirus tests every three days, classes will still be taught online and it won't discount tuition, the school announced Monday. From a report: Upperclassmen will be able to petition to return if they don't have sufficient technology at home or have challenging family circumstances. The total percentage of undergraduates living on campus would be limited to around 40%. "Assuming that we maintain 40% density in the spring semester, we would again bring back one class, and our priority at this time is to bring seniors to campus," Harvard said. "Under this plan, first years would return home and learn remotely in the spring." It expects to release a decision about the spring in early December. Harvard is the latest school to announce its fall semester plans as coronavirus cases continue to spike the U.S. Harvard previously announced that all teaching would occur online. Today it also said tuition will not be discounted from $49,653, although students enrolled remotely won't pay housing fees. The semester will begin as scheduled on Sept. 2 and all students living on campus will be expected to leave by Thanksgiving.
Paying $50k for online only classes? (Score:2)
It seems insane to me to pay $50k/year for online only classes. You could choose to skip a year, live somewhere close to the Harvard campus, study some subjects online and get the same experience for vastly less with the same degree of contact with the elite students of Harvard... at least those that choose to come back to campus. If there aren't many that do that, the value is even more greatly reduced as the connections with other students there is really what you are paying for.
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A degree from Harvard is somewhat analogous to that "I Am Rich" app which was available on iOS for $999.99. People spend the money to demonstrate that they have that kind of money to spend.
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People spend the money to demonstrate that they have that kind of money to spend.
Harvard's price tag is on par with many private universities, and I can assure you that the vast majority of students at private universities aren't there because they're trying to show off the money they have to blow. They've been tricked into thinking it's necessary (which was, to some degree, true for a long time), despite the large expense.
Maybe we'll all be lucky and that notion will start to change quickly as a result of all this...
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A large portion of students don't pay the full tuition anyway. Most of them get scholarships, grants, etc. The only ones paying full tuition are the ones that can only get in by having their parents donate large sums of money, and they can afford 50k a semester.
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People spend the money to demonstrate that they have that kind of money to spend.
Harvard's price tag is on par with many private universities, and I can assure you that the vast majority of students at private universities aren't there because they're trying to show off the money they have to blow.
No of course not. Where else will you get a Harvard MBA so you can be put in charge of bankrupting a company?
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Re:Paying $50k for online only classes? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is true if you are going to Harvard for the education.
However the real value in Harvard is going to that school for the connections. The education at Harvard is about the same as you would get at your local state college. Especially for undergrad work. Going into Grad and PHD programs, then you have access to fancy grants and professors working on interesting research. But for the Undergrad, the only value is meeting up with people who are like the Child of a big CEO or Political figure, become friends with them. Then when you go out in the world you have connections to high places.
If Harvard will be doing Online classes, these connections will greatly be diminished. Thus its overall value is lessen.
University of Phoenix (Score:2)
I wonder if institutions like the University of Phoenix are better at presenting the course material or providing a better overall online experience than Harvard.
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I wonder if institutions like the University of Phoenix are better at presenting the course material or providing a better overall online experience than Harvard.
No, they aren't. UoP classes, as of 2010 at least, are incredibly wattered down and are of much less quality than even a subpar community college. As an example, the junior level database class as part of their software engineering degree had 5 assignments: Create a database, Create a Table, Create a Foreign Key, Populate Data, Create a Report. No exam. I got through all of the work for the 5 week class in less than an hour. An hour in front of a book or online tutorial is equivalent to the entire class.
Onl
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It seems insane to me to pay $50k/year for online only classes.
Harvard has the largest academic endowment in the world, with a total that equals the GDP of 90 countries. Prior to two years ago, rich universities didn't have to pay any tax on their endowments, allowing a university like Harvard to accrue $40 BILLION. Last year, Harvard had to pay nearly $40 million in taxes.
How can a prestigious and rich institution like Harvard continue to retain its lofty image, if its cost of tuition were lowered to reflect the actual value received by students?
Elite clubs (Score:2)
The whole point of attending elite universities like Ivy League, Stanford, Northwestern, MIT, Caltech, Berkeley, Chicago, Rice, etc is to form and become part of a future political, academic, technical, or business elites of the country. This is achieved through close interaction with your peers and faculty. Another point of attending these top schools is that you probably learn as much or even more from your highly motivated and ambitious peers as from the faculty. So it's indeed absolutely pointless to en
Flattening the Curve (Score:5, Interesting)
I thought this was about "Flattening the Curve"? When did it turn into "Lockdown Until There's a Vaccine"?
In my county of 48,000 people, there have been 5 deaths. All people over 80. But we're still all hiding in our basements.
Re:Flattening the Curve (Score:5, Insightful)
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Quarantine of healthy people is a lockdown. Which is what we have.
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I thought this was about "Flattening the Curve"? When did it turn into "Lockdown Until There's a Vaccine"?
In my county of 48,000 people, there have been 5 deaths. All people over 80. But we're still all hiding in our basements.
And my house has never been broken into. I guess I don't need the locks on my doors.
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If this is a lock-down it is a really lousy one. I still go out to get grocery's, hardware, paint...
The problem is the curve may have been flatten, most of the country is really stupid, thus now we are seeing southern and western States going up, as North Eastern states are getting better. However the problem is we cannot block people from entering our state. So going around you county unmasked increases the chances you will run into someone infected probably from a hot spot area. Thus you will catch i
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I thought this was about "Flattening the Curve"? When did it turn into "Lockdown Until There's a Vaccine"?
The moment the curve was flattened. No power mad governor is going to give up what he's (or she's) seized voluntarily.
Once there's a vaccine, it will be "until the vaccine is proven to work more than it is now." And when that's done, it will be "until everyone is vaccinated." And when that's done, it'll be "you're so used to being locked down now, it would be dangerous to let you out."
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I thought this was about "Flattening the Curve"? When did it turn into "Lockdown Until There's a Vaccine"?
The moment the curve was flattened. No power mad governor is going to give up what he's (or she's) seized voluntarily.
Once there's a vaccine, it will be "until the vaccine is proven to work more than it is now." And when that's done, it will be "until everyone is vaccinated." And when that's done, it'll be "you're so used to being locked down now, it would be dangerous to let you out."
You realize flattening the curve isn't a one time deal, right? Ask Florida, or Texas. When yo open back up that curve can start getting real steep real quick. Several places have already had to reimpose lockdowns in certain situations.
Re:Flattening the Curve (Score:5, Interesting)
First, you have to look at the day-to-day new cases numbers, not just the cumulative numbers.
AFTER you have looked at the day-to-day new cases numbers, THEN you have to look at the day-to-day deaths numbers. You have to work a bit to get those, as the people screaming from the rooftops are being VERY careful not to mention them or even allude to them.
When you look at Texas day-to-day, you find that new cases are, indeed, skyrocketing. DEATH numbers, however, are going noisily sideways, indicating that the virus has weakened dramatically, or that the virus is now having a MUCH harder time finding people it can kill, or that the testing is now testing lots of people who AREN'T going to get seriously sick, that were not being tested before. Or some combination of some or all of those.
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The flat numbers of daily deaths is largely because the new cases are a much younger demographic, who are at a much lower level of risk from this disease.
It also helps that governors are no longer forcing skilled nursing homes to accept virus positive patients among the most vulnerable people there are.
Or maybe everyone who is particularly vulnerable is already dead.
In any event, you're right: skyrocketing new daily cases, deaths not skyrocketing (and we're well past the 2 weeks or so that deaths lag behind
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Or more likely, are naturelly delayed from the new cases since you don't die right away.
Re:Flattening the Curve (Score:4, Interesting)
No, the flat death numbers just indicate that it takes weeks to die after getting the virus. Since the number of daily cases has only been skyrocketing for the last 3 weeks, the death numbers should only start rising about now. And indeed it looks like the death number have started to rise a bit [worldometers.info], although the data is very noisy for now. But as the case numbers continue their exponential rise, so will the deaths.
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The governors are only dealing with this problem because the Orange Asshole refused to. A national epidemic is a NATIONAL problem, not a STATE problem. I can't imagine there's a single governor happy about this situation.
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It isn't the federal government's job to deal with this kind of crisis. It is, specifically, legally, the state's job, with the feds offering assistance as needed. That is how the system is structured, and it wasn't an accident that this is so. It was design criteria.
If the response has been poor - like the (Democratic) governor of New York murdering 4,000 people by forcing skilled nursing homes full of people especially vulnerable to the virus to accept patients proven to have it - then it is on the states
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I've pointed that out to others before and got either blank stares or angry denials. The number of Americans who have no clue how their government is structured is mind-blowing.
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But not surprising. Both parties have worked diligently for decades to create a population of ignorant sheep.
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Here's a complicated concept that Trump cultists tend to have trouble with, but see if you can follow:
1. State borders in the United States are not hardened. They are 100% porous. Any person can cross any state line at any time for any reason. Most state lines are not monitored by government agencies.
2. People cross state borders constantly, every second of every day.
3. Viruses cross the borders with
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It isn't the federal government's job to deal with this kind of crisis. It is, specifically, legally, the state's job, with the feds offering assistance as needed.
But the feds didn't offer assistance - they were too busy out-bidding the state governments and cornering the market on ventilators and PPE.
Re:Flattening the Curve (Score:5, Insightful)
No power mad governor is going to give up what he's (or she's) seized voluntarily.
What have you imagined is the great power governors have now? The power to cripple their economy, anger the half of their constituents who don't understand the problem, the power to make significant decisions which need to be made far before there is enough data to be decided thoroughly? No governor enjoys putting their state in a form of lock-down. This is not fun for them. There isn't a single governor who isn't anxious to open things up as soon as reasonably possible.
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No governor enjoys putting their state in a form of lock-down. This is not fun for them.
Frankly, I don't believe that. I think that some governors are loving every second of it at an almost sexual level.
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Frankly, I don't believe that. I think that some governors are loving every second of it at an almost sexual level.
One common approach in professional personality tests is not to ask what you would do in a situation, but what you think the average person would do. This is because the beliefs you reflect onto others is a better window into your own personality than asking what you think about yourself. There is far less chance of dishonesty with this method as well. I bring this up because your viewpoints about how governors react to the exercise of power almost certainly says far more about your own personality and beli
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Don't try to troll the master, son. You haven't got what it takes.
Not to mention what you just said about yourself.
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Not to mention what you just said about yourself.
At worst I just implied I have the tendency to project my personal values on others, just as everyone does (including my explicit claim that you are doing this). Considering in this context I am arguing governors are not power hungry sociopaths, I am comfortable with the implication that I am also not a power hungry sociopath.
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You have a fucked up mind.
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The number of states where the respective governors shouted "OPEN ALL THE THINGS!" suggests otherwise. The subsequent spike in new cases suggests a more nuanced approach might have been better.
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The subsequent lack of change in the number of deaths (and Georgia, the first state to reopen, just hit the lowest number since March) suggests otherwise.
In fact, under CDC guidelines, COVID-19 can be expected to no longer qualify as an epidemic [justthenews.com] within the next few weeks because the deaths have fallen so far.
Not that I don't expect the CDC to change the guidelines before that happens.
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The deaths naturally trail behind cases since you don't die the day you are diagnosed.
But you're dodging the point. There can't be a lot of "power mad" governors since you said "No power mad governor is going to give up what he's (or she's) seized voluntarily." in reference to lockdowns.
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All it takes is someone from, or coming into the county, for shopping or a party type thing. Look at the clusters (Princess cruise ship - March 4th - I started tracking that day, military, medical workers, elderly care facilities, prisons, churches, holidays; check the curves in the US, this is very clear).
This spreads really easily in groups. Fast.
I know three people that have had it. All recovered, all under 45.
4.5% chance of death if contracted (obviously age biased, not counting current infections,
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4.5% chance of death if contracted (obviously age biased, not counting current infections, just reported vs. infections)..
Lol, no there isn't.
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I don't want to get COVID. And it's pretty simple math, globally tracking.
Reported Deaths: 538,539
Confirmed Cases: 11,641,640
Deaths/Confirmed: 4.63%.
Then, take into account Recovered: 6,320,890
So, the Current Infected = Confirmed - Deaths - Recovered: 4,782,211
Some of those Current Infected will be dying. And Confirmed keeps rising (180K a day globally, rising daily mostly) faster than Recovered, more people with it, more spread.
Source of data:
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/op... [arcgis.com]
If interested, here's
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>"4.5% chance of death if contracted."
Um, no. Not even remotely close. Please look at the current CDC estimates:
0.4% of people WHO FEEL SICK with Covid-19 (have symptoms), and seek help, will die. For people under 50 the agency estimated that 0.05% of symptomatic people will die.
And when properly adjusted down by the 35% of infected people who don't even show symptoms (also shown by the CDC):
0.26% of all people who get infected by Covid-19 will die. For people under 50 the estimate would be 0.0325% o
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No. No. No.
CNN said only a million people have tested positive and 100,000 have died. It is a 10% death rate.
Be very scared. Hide in your basement. Submit to any medical tests by whoever knocks on your door. You don't hate grandpa do you, bigot?
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0.4% of people WHO FEEL SICK with Covid-19 (have symptoms), and seek help, will die
My dear, you dance divinely...
The key phrase is "people who feel sick with Covid-19 (have symptoms)." A couple of weeks ago, I wasn't feeling good. Bit of a sore throat, cough, swollen glands, a bit stuffed up. Some of those are Covid-19 symptoms. So I went to the doctor. They tested for strep throat, Covid-19, and prescribed 10 days worth of Amoxycillin. All tests came back negative. In other words, I didn't have Covid-19.
So I'm one of the 99.6% who didn't die from Covid-19. And since the Amoxycill
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>"The key phrase is "people who feel sick with Covid-19 (have symptoms)."
They were saying "0.4% of people who show symptoms and have Covid-19 will die." I might have reworded it inappropriately. But the intent is that they DO have COVID-19 *and* are showing symptoms.
>"Yeah, nice try. You kind of gave yourself away, though, with the ALL CAPS."
I put it in all caps to separate it from the 35% of people who are infected and will be positive for COVID-19 but have no symptoms, and were NOT included in th
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I thought this was about "Flattening the Curve"?
It was... and then our President politicized it and pushed to open early. As a result we have a massive spike in cases because some people refuse to wear a mask because "freedumb".
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Actually, when the President pushed to reopen early, every Democratic governor screamed bloody murder, saying "YOU CAN'T TELL US WHAT TO DO!!!".
Trump then said "You're right, I can't. That makes the reopening decision, AND THE CONSEQUENCES OF STAYING LOCKED DOWN, your responsibility, not mine."
Funny thing, that. When the Democrats found out that THEY would be held responsible for the consequences of reopening late, they all signed up to reopen, right around the target date Trump had announced.
Of course, y
Re: Flattening the Curve (Score:2)
If you didn't open up it would have taken ages to get to herd immunity. To just flatten the curve you only need as much measures to keep ICUs from getting overrun and no more, any more just prolongs suffering.
To reduce the area below the curve, that's a different matter. It's still an open question if that is possible in the long run.
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Early?
What dimension were you living in back in March? The line was that we all need to stay home for 2 weeks to make sure the hospitals don't get overwhelmed with the dead bodies, since we were going to have, in a good scenario, 2.2 million dead by summertime. We needed to make sure we could handle the 2.2 million dead and tens of millions who would be in the process of dying without medical care in a somewhat orderly fashion rather than having everyone dying at once which would be a nightmare scenario.
Rem
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>"I thought this was about "Flattening the Curve"?
It was. We *knew* we would have no vaccine for many months, if not over a year, when the "temporary" lockdowns were sold to everyone. We also knew there would probably be no effective treatment, either. The objective was to prevent overwhelming the healthcare system. And that was met in the first few weeks, because it really wasn't anywhere near as overwhelming as they thought. So, instead, something like 99+% of all hospitals were way under capacity
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Everyone has lost their minds, especially in the US. On the one hand Coronavirus is serious, real, and without mitigation could have killed several hundred thousand people (not millions, in the US, as even "without mitigation" lots of people would be smart enough to stay the fuck home). Masks help, and social distancing helps. Then you get ding-dongs with an IQ of 90 who feel masks threaten their carefully manicured sense of masculinity, and the whole thing turns political.
On the other hand, people act like
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You're missing the key bit, which is that we are talking about exponential growth. "Starting to look bad", as you put it, doesn't not mean the hospitals are full at this moment. It means that R0 is significantly over 1 so that the number of cases is rising and will rise indefinitely without a clampdown. Given that the number of cases in the US is currently doubling every 20 or so days, things are looking extremely bad already. The longer we wait before the clampdown, the harder the clampdown will have to be
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I thought this was about "Flattening the Curve"? When did it turn into "Lockdown Until There's a Vaccine"?
In my county of 48,000 people, there have been 5 deaths. All people over 80. But we're still all hiding in our basements.
For starters, you're nowhere near herd immunity and at the start of what looks like a big surge. Flattening the curve isn't a short lockdown and done. You need to continue social distancing and other measures to avoid a big outbreak. Ease off restrictions too much and you could end up with a lot more New Yorks.
Second, slowing the spread gives you more benefit than just waiting for a vaccine. Every day gives doctors and scientists more time to analyze existing data and improve treatments. They're already lea
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About the time the kooks started claiming that just being asked to wear a mask and don't slobber all over everyone constitutes a lockdown.
I can't comment on your particular county since you haven't identified it.
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Most universities have lots of people-dense social environments such as dorms, lecture halls, dining halls, and classrooms. There's no way to return to business-as-usual in a university and maintain a flat curve. There's just too many people sharing too many common areas. They ultimately need to get some percentage of students off campus to reduce density. And if they do this then they pretty pretty much have to offer a fully-online option, even if there is an option for some in-person instruction.
And of c
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I thought this was about "Flattening the Curve"? When did it turn into "Lockdown Until There's a Vaccine"?
In my county of 48,000 people, there have been 5 deaths. All people over 80. But we're still all hiding in our basements.
The USA is no where near flattening the curve. You guys absolutely sucked at the concept of locking down which is precisely why its drawing out the way it is. The only people who claim that the curve was flattened are Fox and Friends and their two parrots in the white house.
In the meantime the rest of the west is slowly moving with caution towards reopening. You can see similar results in Australia. States which adopted and successfully locked down were doing well. Victoria where a whole lot of "fuck the au
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And yet (Score:2)
Not a problem for Harvard (Score:2)
May be they cheat, may be they game the system, may be evaluators are awed by the superior intellect and grade them liberally, may be they are graded on the curve, but one thing they do well is, they all ace all tests.
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To get into Harvard the students are often coming from high schools with strong test taking skills, and many will study hard to pass those tests.
That said, Academic grades do not strongly correlate to professional success. But strong contacts do.
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That said, Academic grades do not strongly correlate to professional success. But strong contacts do.
As a result, professional success does not correlate strongly to the success of the businesses that employ them. You can make a lot of money while still being functionally stupid.
Re:Not a problem for Harvard (Score:4, Informative)
Cost? (Score:2)
I thought that a test costs about $500 - usually paid for by your medical insurance. But in this case, there is not medical indication, so the cost should be covered by the mandating institution. Surely that is not cost effective?
That being said, tests every few days do make sense in a way if you want to control potential outbreaks. A test every week is too slow for that, because in a week you could have infected 5 people, and they could have infected another 25 already.
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It does take 3-5 days to get results.
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Harvard can just tap into that endowment.
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Oh absolutely, but that is a question of public policy, not private policy. To me, this seems like abuse of the test system, although it might be ok if there is spare capacity.
for $50K + housing that test needs to be free (Score:2)
for $50K + housing that test needs to be free or least be able to added to your loan
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for $50K + housing that test needs to be free or least be able to added to your loan
They are business. They should be able to charge whatever they want. If they price themselves out of the market, that's their problem.
It isn't like there is a shortage of Universities and you have to go to Harvard.
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It isn't like there is a shortage of Universities and you have to go to Harvard.
It is however like simply having a degree from Harvard opens a lot of doors. Not to mention having a degree from there gets you in a club and the people in therein are going to be lifelong assets... which is a big deal because of a lot of them come from the rich and powerful class.
Feels good to say Harvard is just another university but that's just not reality.
Go Vikings! Smallest state school in WA!
https://www.wwu.edu/ [wwu.edu]
Will the COST to attend drop? (Score:1)
Blood draw? (Score:2)
students will have to take coronavirus tests every three days
Dumb question. I just had a test and it was a blood draw. Folks are going to do blood draws every 3 days?
although students enrolled remotely won't pay housing fees
That's one of those things you shouldn't have to state. I almost wish it would have been the other way so I could hear their reasoning.
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students will have to take coronavirus tests every three days
Dumb question. I just had a test and it was a blood draw. Folks are going to do blood draws every 3 days?
I had a virus test done (before a minor operation) and it was a nasal swab (with a very long swab!)
I believe this is standard.
If you had a blood test I suspect that was an antibody test.
i.e. a test of whether you had had an infection, not that you have an infection.
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If you had a blood test I suspect that was an antibody test.
You are correct. Thanks for clearing that up.
ICE forces on-line only foreign students out of US (Score:1)
Nonimmigrant F-1 and M-1 students attending schools operating entirely online may not take a full online course load and remain in the United States,â Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced in a press release Monday, referring to the visa classifications for academic and vocational students.
https://www.ice.gov/news/relea... [ice.gov]
Bet that all will be foreign students. (Score:2)