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BC coronavirus numbers point to outbreak, and not just on aquatic teams
By adamg on Thu, 09/10/2020 - 12:16pm
Boston College is now reporting 46 undergraduates have tested positive for Covid-19 this week.
With 1,228 students tested since Monday, that's a positivity rate of 3.7% for the week, or nearly four times the current statewide testing numbers.
Until this morning, BC had reported 3 positive tests out of 107 tests given undergraduates for the week. The college reports tests of faculty, staff and others on campus have all been negative.
BC posted the latest numbers after the Globe reported that 13 members of the BC swim and diving teams had tested positive for the virus.
The college reports it currently has 28 students in college-controlled isolation housing and another 40 in isolation at home.
In August, the BPDA gave BC permission to rent the entire 74-room Hotel Boston - a motel on Mt. Hood Avenue in Brighton that a developer wants to tear down - and to use some of its rooms as quarantine spaces for both students who test positive and students who are awaiting test results after coming into close contact with people who have tested positive.
Since Aug. 16, when BC began formal testing, some 83 people have tested positive out of 23,850 - with all but two of the people being undergraduates.
BC requires people on campus to fill out a daily symptom check and is conducting "extensive asymptomatic and high-contact, randomized surveillance testing each week."
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Comments
Bad link
The link for "extensive asymptomatic and high-contact, randomized surveillance testing each week." goes back to this article.
Not happy w/BC.
Sorry about that
Link fixed.
Unbelievable.
Unbelievable. Apparently BC is doing random testing of only 10% of their student body per week - 1,500 a week. Northeastern is testing 7,000 EVERY DAY. The entire student body 3x per week. THIRTY TIMES the testing rate at BC. What did BC think was going to happen? With a disease that presents asymptomatically in many young adults? I literally can't fathom the administrators at BC looking around at their peer schools and then deciding this would suffice.
Best case scenario here, BC was aware of the outbreak on the swim team, and did follow-up contact tracing that led to these additional positive tests. Mind you even this best case looks extremely bad especially since this would mean they knew about this days ago and neglected to warn the student body or the surrounding community until it leaked to the Globe....not a great look.
But if they didn't know and these tests were truly random, it's even worse; since they only test 10% of the student body, there would presumably be hundreds of other positive cases. In that event, it's basically game over. I assume they would have to stop classes, test 100% of the student body, park hundreds of kids in quarantine until they recover, and pray that they didn't also seed a wider outbreak in the community. What a colossal (and eminently preventable) disaster.
Massive Lawsuits and Criminal Charges
That looks like criminal negligence by decision-makers at BC, and it was entirely predictable and warned about, but they took the money.
They won’t be criminally liable
But the way to fix it is for the state to remove the financial incentive of collecting tuition while spreading COVID throughout the community.
so you think their testing
so you think their testing schedule doesn't hold water?
I apologize
I was wrong.
https://universalhub.com/comment/802328#comment-802328
I said wait 7-10 days. Turns out it was only 6.
Once again
Viruses don't behave according to what administrators want to believe about transmission rates and impacts in students.
They behave according to whether habitat is present and is useful.
starting to see
the college kids walking around Allston in close-together groups without masks on. makes perfect sense to me that we will be closed down again in Boston before Thanksgiving.
What was said...
...yesterday by one commenter in another thread, about how this is the eye of the hurricane?
Brace yourselves.
And--since Adam, along with
And--since Adam, along with many Universals, mocked Emerson's plans--here's their most recent results:
Test Results from August 31 to September 6, 2020
3,805 students
Total positive tests. 3
Positive tests. 0.1%
Colleges testing
Most local colleges are reporting very low positive rates which on the surface sounds great....
However several of these institutions are having students self swab...a bunch of physicians I have come across are not convinced that the "self swab" protocol will result in accurate samples. It's an uncomfortable test if done correctly by a trained healthcare professional.
Let's hope they don't miss cases this way...