You said under 60, and are now moving the goalposts.
What do CDC data say about the raw death rate (including comorbidities) of those 50-60, the age group many profs belong to?
School opens. How to survive?
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@8d37
CDC has the data. Let's just take for example my age bracket 35-44. Between Feb 1 and May 16, we saw 1,186 US deaths attributed to COVID. That's out of 40 million folks, for a probability of .0000297. Far less than a semester's worth of heart attack, cancer, driving risk, etc. Just not an important determinant of mortality for this age group.
Fun fact: one of those 1186 was the Colorado guy with a blood alcohol content of .55% at the time of his death. That is equivalent to drinking 19 beers in two hours.And a 37 yo overdose death in Ventura, CA
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You can control for those sorts of cases by looking at excess deaths rather than those attributed to Covid. That’s how the calculate the flu IFR. Thing is, excess deaths are higher than Covid deaths, and that’s even without adjusting for lower rates of deaths by car accident and murder (which have been suppressed by the lock down).
@8d37
CDC has the data. Let's just take for example my age bracket 35-44. Between Feb 1 and May 16, we saw 1,186 US deaths attributed to COVID. That's out of 40 million folks, for a probability of .0000297. Far less than a semester's worth of heart attack, cancer, driving risk, etc. Just not an important determinant of mortality for this age group.
Fun fact: one of those 1186 was the Colorado guy with a blood alcohol content of .55% at the time of his death. That is equivalent to drinking 19 beers in two hours.And a 37 yo overdose death in Ventura, CA
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You can control for those sorts of cases by looking at excess deaths rather than those attributed to Covid. That’s how the calculate the flu IFR. Thing is, excess deaths are higher than Covid deaths, and that’s even without adjusting for lower rates of deaths by car accident and murder (which have been suppressed by the lock down).
@8d37
CDC has the data. Let's just take for example my age bracket 35-44. Between Feb 1 and May 16, we saw 1,186 US deaths attributed to COVID. That's out of 40 million folks, for a probability of .0000297. Far less than a semester's worth of heart attack, cancer, driving risk, etc. Just not an important determinant of mortality for this age group.
Fun fact: one of those 1186 was the Colorado guy with a blood alcohol content of .55% at the time of his death. That is equivalent to drinking 19 beers in two hours.And a 37 yo overdose death in Ventura, CA
THat's partly driven by folks stressed out binge drinking and having heart attacks and then not going to the hospital.
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You said under 60, and are now moving the goalposts.
What do CDC data say about the raw death rate (including comorbidities) of those 50-60, the age group many profs belong to?Elderly people face a lot of risk.
Young people have almost zero risk. (My age group as an *example*)
By continuity, there is a group of almost-old people that face moderate risk.
We can argue if the cutoff is 60 but of course it depends what one means by moderate. Within this set, there will presumably be accommodations. Folks moving to admin duties and/or upper level classes that can be handled remotely. Perhaps some leaves-of-absence or buyouts. There isn't going to be a one-size-fits-all solution. -
It seems to me the risk of a moderate faculty outbreak is not being weighted properly in the fall 2020 f2f vs online discussion.
If we just go online, maybe some freshmen don't show. How many depends on the school in question.
If we go f2f and get an outbreak with 25% of profs out sick (even if they are not deathly ill, they can't come in with the covid), who will cover their classes? Full refunds to 25% of classes, plus probably some lawsuits to go with it. But, I have not heard this discussed robustly by those doing the planning at my school.
It is just not clear to me benefits outweight costs even privately to the school. Socially, I a pretty sure they do not (as I said before).
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WE ARE TALKING ABOUT SEPTEMBER!
Obviously anything could happen - a massive second wave, a World War, an alien invasion. But the fact of the matter is that cases are falling rapidly. Deaths in NY today are 1/10th the peak, and that is in a month. Many localities in September will be in places with daily death rates on the order of 1 in 1 million, which is slightly lower than the wintertime daily death rate from the flu, and not far off the US daily death rate in automobile crashes. About 20% of US states *already* have that death rate. Everyone agrees that schools should not open in the middle of an exploding epidemic. This is not what we are discussing.
If you live in a place where restaurants are open, and beaches are open, are parks are full, and you refuse to stand 10 feet away from your students and give a lecture a few times a week, that is your decision. But if you feel that way, then teach online for half your normal salary, because that is the revenue you are bringing in. Or take unpaid leave. Student survey evidence is very clear: many will not come if we are online. And if we are online, why wouldn't a student just go to a permanently-online degree program that charges 1/4 the tuition?
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It seems to me the risk of a moderate faculty outbreak is not being weighted properly in the fall 2020 f2f vs online discussion.
If we just go online, maybe some freshmen don't show. How many depends on the school in question.
If we go f2f and get an outbreak with 25% of profs out sick (even if they are not deathly ill, they can't come in with the covid), who will cover their classes? Full refunds to 25% of classes, plus probably some lawsuits to go with it. But, I have not heard this discussed robustly by those doing the planning at my school.
It is just not clear to me benefits outweight costs even privately to the school. Socially, I a pretty sure they do not (as I said before).I am quite sure colleagues will be asked to cover on short notice if a prof misses more than a week or so of classes. Of course that amounts to an increase in workload (as does doing both f2f and online, moving to a 3 semester system as some are planning,...). My employer insists that there won't be an increase in workload lol. Or they will hope that profs will feel pressure to teach online as long as they are not on a vent.
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WE ARE TALKING ABOUT SEPTEMBER!
Obviously anything could happen - a massive second wave, a World War, an alien invasion. But the fact of the matter is that cases are falling rapidly. Deaths in NY today are 1/10th the peak, and that is in a month. Many localities in September will be in places with daily death rates on the order of 1 in 1 million, which is slightly lower than the wintertime daily death rate from the flu, and not far off the US daily death rate in automobile crashes. About 20% of US states *already* have that death rate. Everyone agrees that schools should not open in the middle of an exploding epidemic. This is not what we are discussing.
If you live in a place where restaurants are open, and beaches are open, are parks are full, and you refuse to stand 10 feet away from your students and give a lecture a few times a week, that is your decision. But if you feel that way, then teach online for half your normal salary, because that is the revenue you are bringing in. Or take unpaid leave. Student survey evidence is very clear: many will not come if we are online. And if we are online, why wouldn't a student just go to a permanently-online degree program that charges 1/4 the tuition?Not sure where you are. In my state, death rates are just barely below peak, daily cases are about 3 times higher than when the state closed, and yet our state has started reopenening. We are not looking at a reopening like in South Korea.
My uni has not made any offers in terms of leave, lower salary for online teaching or anything like that. I actually think that a salary cut with remote teaching for everyone and discounted tuition is the way to go at least for fall(together with furlough of a lot of the admin bloat). -
WE ARE TALKING ABOUT SEPTEMBER!
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Student survey evidence is very clear: many will not come if we are online. And if we are online, why wouldn't a student just go to a permanently-online degree program that charges 1/4 the tuition?Three things to note about this:
1) We have to announce plans now and, as you say, we don't know what September will bring. So,the plan should be about effective risk management with risk aversion, not what we hope Fall will be like.
2) Students can say anything on a survey. Most Juniors and Seniors that are well on the way to a degree will be back, sure to switching costs. As for the others, typically a slow economy is a good time to go back to school. Now, this varies by school. But I suspect for many schools any enrollment shortfall is modest. Plus, what about parents that keep their kids out because they fear f2f? Not clear what the net effects of these things will be.
3) Doing quality online education takes more time and effort, and is therefore more expensive, than in person. Now, not more expensive than Harvard. But, more expensive than tuition at a great many state schools. So, sure, they could go to U Phoenix. Would not save much relative to my school, if any, and the quality would be worse. But if they want to, go for it.
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I am quite sure colleagues will be asked to cover on short notice if a prof misses more than a week or so of classes. Of course that amounts to an increase in workload (as does doing both f2f and online, moving to a 3 semester system as some are planning,...). My employer insists that there won't be an increase in workload lol. Or they will hope that profs will feel pressure to teach online as long as they are not on a vent.
Two observations on this:
1) Some new law, I think the Family First Coronavirus Response Act, requires those that have some legit cause to get paid 2/3 for a pretty long leave of absence. Applies to many employers, including my state U.
2) Our union contract limits workload increases pretty clearly. If we start off full time, the room to have us cover classes is pretty small, even if we were to want to do that for some reason.
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If we go f2f and get an outbreak with 25% of profs out sick (even if they are not deathly ill, they can't come in with the covid), who will cover their classes? Full refunds to 25% of classes, plus...
https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/COVIDNet/COVID19_5.html
The current fraction of people hospitalized for COVID in the 18-64 year old range is currently around 10,000.
As a fraction of that demographic the fraction hospitalized is .000052.
Meaning that in any given large university the expected number of professors hospitalized is almost exactly zero.
For your 25% number to be reasonable, the fall wave would have to be many many orders of magnitude worse than the current wave. And if a professor gets sick for a week we don't offer refunds. That's not how it works.
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None of this happy talk is consistent with what we are seeing in similar environments -- meaning indoor, prolonged exposure, limited distancing.
Retailers have been pretty successful as stemming new infections, but food processing plants, nursing homes and, most recently, reopened churches are seeing big increases in infections.
If you are in a small, poorly ventilated room with a group of people for over an hour 30 times, I would imagine the risk is nontrivial if you are 50+ or have chronic medical conditions.
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If we go f2f and get an outbreak with 25% of profs out sick (even if they are not deathly ill, they can't come in with the covid), who will cover their classes? Full refunds to 25% of classes, plus...
https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/COVIDNet/COVID19_5.html
The current fraction of people hospitalized for COVID in the 18-64 year old range is currently around 10,000.
As a fraction of that demographic the fraction hospitalized is .000052.
Meaning that in any given large university the expected number of professors hospitalized is almost exactly zero.
For your 25% number to be reasonable, the fall wave would have to be many many orders of magnitude worse than the current wave. And if a professor gets sick for a week we don't offer refunds. That's not how it works.I don' think you get what I meant. I am not saying 25% are too ill to function. I am saying if you test positive you can't come to campus, and if there is an outbreak there will be testing.
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WE ARE TALKING ABOUT SEPTEMBER!
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Student survey evidence is very clear: many will not come if we are online. And if we are online, why wouldn't a student just go to a permanently-online degree program that charges 1/4 the tuition?Three things to note about this:
1) We have to announce plans now and, as you say, we don't know what September will bring. So,the plan should be about effective risk management with risk aversion, not what we hope Fall will be like.
2) Students can say anything on a survey. Most Juniors and Seniors that are well on the way to a degree will be back, sure to switching costs. As for the others, typically a slow economy is a good time to go back to school. Now, this varies by school. But I suspect for many schools any enrollment shortfall is modest. Plus, what about parents that keep their kids out because they fear f2f? Not clear what the net effects of these things will be.
3) Doing quality online education takes more time and effort, and is therefore more expensive, than in person. Now, not more expensive than Harvard. But, more expensive than tuition at a great many state schools. So, sure, they could go to U Phoenix. Would not save much relative to my school, if any, and the quality would be worse. But if they want to, go for it.1) You are interested in tail risk. The tail risk of losing 1/3 of your class is much worse than the tail risk of moving to online in October if another major outbreak happens.
2 and 3) The risk is not students skipping college. It is that they go to an all online program for a Masters or cheaper transferable credits for a BA. It is not more expensive to do full time online. But it does involve a huge fixed cost that our competitors have paid. If a student asked me whether they should do our program online, or always online competing programs at HEC, Georgia Tech, Illinois, etc for 1/3 the tuition, the answer is obvious - and that's even though I think we do a fantastic job teaching in person and have a much better research faculty than those places. -
If the risks are as small as some are claiming, why are universities lobbying the federal government for liability waivers. These ultra low risks people are referencing shouldn't translate into many deaths and should make liability insurance for COVID very cheap.