COVID-19 and impact on school

Veterinary Science Graduate Certificate from UofI
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WildZoo said:
I was gonna say, the game's controls are such that it's kind of impossible to do well :laugh:
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At least they used ppe!
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Seems like other schools are on the same path that mine is, then! I should have rephrased my initial inquiry a bit differently, as my hospital was also emergency only with no students for a a bit, and now students are back from what I can tell, again, doesn’t really apply to me anymore so not sure how they are doing it!
 
MixedAnimals77 said:
Ski, WZ, and Bats have all made excellent points already in which many of were brought up in my original post. Unfortunately it's just too early to know to a specific degree what's going to happen and they're doing their best to plan for every scenario. Like WZ mentioned they're working with those people like public health, infectious disease experts, doctors, etc to come up with plans. Spokane campus has a med school and I know the WSU system has been working hard to collaborate to expedite things including working with UW, but what things end up being like on each individual campus will look different because of size, location, programs and resources. All of these vet schools are also talking to each other. When the decisions came to shut down particularly with the 4th years I know our dean and hospital director were on the phone with several other vet schools around the US on how to best navigate this. How 4th years are proceeding is varying a ton by location. As far as I know we are the only school yet to pursue online format due to size, cases, and how our 4th years are scheduled. As of last week they're scheduled to start back in clinics in 2 weeks with some sort of variation (details I'm not 100% in the know). Ideally our county will be on the cusp of entering WA phase 3 by then which allows groups of 50 and would allow the hospital to return to "normal" per say as far as students back in clinics.

Overall most universities in the US it seems from various articles I have read are looking to do the hybrid format. U of Arizona has a plan with contact trace that made it sound like they were going back full force in the fall. If you look at other countries like Korea and China they are getting their children back into school-with some creative ways which I think could be implemented here fairly easily to allow the safest return to class. Not being comfortable with that is ok and you can talk to administration about concerns you have and options(I would wait til July though as I think they will have a better know of what's happening vs right now alot of the answers are idk).

I know for many of my classmates, myself included we would rather start in-person and have to go back to online later if necessary. Our labs (specifically 3rd year) cannot be transformed to an online format. It'd be easier for us to do labs and then delay clinics by 2,4,6 weeks etc while a group quarantined if necessary because we can't start clinics without doing some of these labs. 2nd&1st year labs are easier to move to online, 1st year probably not ideal, but doable.

A second factor specifically for me (and many of my classmates with SOs) that makes me ok with going back to school is that I'm just as at risk sitting at home as if I was in school. Many of our SOs are still working with some of them dealing with the public up close and personal everyday and bringing all of that home with them everyday. It's a very different situation for everyone for sure based on your living situation. Mix everyone together and there's definitely no 100% safe way to go about restarting.

I would encourage you to watch the next WSU system town hall this Friday if you can. It's nothing specific to the CVM, but will hopefully give you a better idea of where the overarching administration is at at this point in time as far as decisions.

My inbox is always open too as I'm always happy to inform you as I learn things and answer more specific questions if I can. Administration will send out an email when things are "final" but like everything things are changing rapidly and so are they, they simply just don't know at this point.
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I have been watching the town halls...I appreciate that they make them available. Nothing about the circumstance is ideal. There are no great answers or solutions on either side of the decision. Both sides have major pros and major cons. I am sure they will have a plan that is well thought out, I still think they are likely being overly optimistic.

I am excited to be at school and would much prefer to be in person. So I hope I am wrong regarding what I think will happen. I have several close friends who are Doctors treating covid-19 and their perspective strongly influences my concerns with the idea that starting in person in the fall is a good idea. I also personally know 3 people who have lost otherwise healthy and fairly young family members to covid-19. So that plays a roll as well.

I get why they haven’t given us more information, but I can still wish they were able to share more details. Ultimately it will work out how it works out. And it will have new and unique challenges no matter what gets decided. How cases develop or don’t develop in June will surely influence what happens come this fall.
 
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WildZoo said:
I can only speak for my school so hopefully someone from WSU will know more, but everything they do here comes out of meetings with our public health experts, and yes, there is a plan in place. They may not have fully developed those plans for the fall yet, since there are still a few months ahead of us and things change so rapidly. If they haven't given you more information, it is probably because they don't quite have it yet. Here they haven't put out the official plan for the fall yet, though there are several in consideration.

Yes, I imagine if someone in a group were to get sick, everyone would have to be quarantined and tested, that is part of the reason for having in person stuff only happen with smaller groups. Having a larger capacity for testing (which some places do now, not everywhere of course, and hopefully will be more widespread by the fall) will help so that people don't have to quarantine unnecessarily. There will be steps to try to prevent that necessity in the first place. Having everyone still wear masks, maintaining that 6ft distancing wherever possible, self checks in the morning, etc. And I can't imagine they would let people show up without requiring a 2 week quarantine after travel. That is policy here at least, if you've traveled by public transit at all, or if you're coming from a county with a certain number of new cases in the previous 2 weeks (since I haven't been traveling I don't remember the numbers lol) you have to quarantine and check your temperature twice daily. May have changed with testing availability but I think they're still reserving tests for people who are symptomatic or have known exposure.

And all of this could change again in the next few months but I hope knowing what the protocols have been like elsewhere will ease your mind at least somewhat. The best thing you can do is talk to your school though, because they will have the most accurate info for you.
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I hear what you are saying in regards to most of this. I hope I’m wrong in the way I think it will go regarding an increase in cases.

I honestly don’t think there is a way to effectively quarantine an entire student body traveling from wherever they call home back to school, and given the two week incubation period before showing symptoms that becomes problematic. When you consider dorms, common areas, apartments, public transport, and food venues the risk of exposure and spread seems likely.

I hope I’m wrong and excited to start veterinary school no matter what the format ends up looking like. I am sure they will be making lots of adjustments trying to cope with this changing circumstance.

There will be pros and cons no matter how they handle it and people who will disagree with the plan no matter how it goes. I don’t think there is a great solution to the circumstance.
 
VetGirl42 said:
I get why they haven’t given us more information, but I can still wish they were able to share more details.
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So my class specifically struggled with this back in March when we went online after spring break. We had our third year milestone testing, OSCE, and were supposed to start clinics on March 30. The dean sent us a weekly short update that did not have a ton of details. Eventually, this came to a head and the dean told us that the updates we were getting were the literal details of what they had at the end of the week. They didnt give more details, or send details more often, because things have been changing rapidly (back then, literally day-by-day).

Right now, they're probably not sharing more details because those details are changing weekly (or even multiple times in a week). Theres no sense to tell students to prep for online till spring, then tell them next week that there maybe a chance of in person in October halfway through the semester.

They're literally giving the details they feel comfortable telling students. They realistically probably dont have more to tell us all right now.
 
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VetGirl42 said:
I hear what you are saying in regards to most of this. I hope I’m wrong in the way I think it will go regarding an increase in cases.

I honestly don’t think there is a way to effectively quarantine an entire student body traveling from wherever they call home back to school, and given the two week incubation period before showing symptoms that becomes problematic. When you consider dorms, common areas, apartments, public transport, and food venues the risk of exposure and spread seems likely.

I hope I’m wrong and excited to start veterinary school no matter what the format ends up looking like. I am sure they will be making lots of adjustments trying to cope with this changing circumstance.

There will be pros and cons no matter how they handle it and people who will disagree with the plan no matter how it goes. I don’t think there is a great solution to the circumstance.
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I guess my point is there are a lot of things being done to mitigate risk, and the schools have been dealing with this for long enough now, and been in enough committees and conversations, that they are well aware of the steps that need to be taken to keep people safe. It does depend on people actually following those guidelines. I have more faith in professional students in that regard than I do in the general public - confirmed by my observations of NO ONE WEARING MASKS AHHHH in the fingerprinting office I had to go to last week. I felt much safer going into school earlier this month than I felt going to the store. Right now we're so far out that we really have no idea what it will look like in the fall. When August/September comes around, the area your school is in could be in great shape, and they could decide that doing in-person labs will be totally feasible. They may decide to keep lectures online, or to have students spread out in the lecture hall if that is possible and fits within local guidelines. Our lecture halls are so small here that they probably will continue to do online didactics for a while. Or the area may have seen an upswing in cases, so they may decide to continue to have everything online and push labs until later on. Requiring students to quarantine after travel and send in self-check data is feasible, it's already happening with staff and clinical students here.

Unfortunately the virus isn't going to go away, so the timeline doesn't really consist of everyone staying isolated until it does. Reopenings and relaxing isolation measures are all timed based on local epidemiology (or rather they should be...there's a lot of politics going into it these days. Again, I really only know about my county). That doesn't mean that there will be zero new cases, it means that the they will be at a sustainable level, that testing will be readily available, and that the capacity of the local health care system will stay above the range it needs to be in to deal with those new cases as they come. Yes, that does mean things could go poorly and adjustments may have to be made. That's a function of the time we're living in. Once the incidence of new cases reaches a very low level, another peak is going to happen whether you start reopening things the next week or in two months.

That's the perspective the schools are working from, so it may help to try to see it from that viewpoint. Otherwise, at this point in time, I don't personally feel like it is worth worrying over. The uncertainty is one of the worst parts of all of this for sure, and this entire conversation could become irrelevant in a week. It's definitely an exercise in taking things as they come and dealing with them to the best of our abilities.
 
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States are also attempting to reopen now. If there is an increase in cases that occur with this process that will most likely influence any decisions for the fall.

The waiting is hard, but there’s nothing we can do except follow the guidelines. if there are a lot of gatherings like the pool party in Lake Ozark we could see a spike in a week or two.
 
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Corgi_Queen said:
States are also attempting to reopen now. If there is an increase in cases that occur with this process that will most likely influence any decisions for the fall.

The waiting is hard, but there’s nothing we can do except follow the guidelines. if there are a lot of gatherings like the pool party in Lake Ozark we could see a spike in a week or two.
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ughhhhh I have seen so many videos of packed beaches and folks out in bars. I think a second wave has already started to swell up where I’m at. I’m the only one at work who wears a mask, and certainly very few owners do. It’s just craziness.
 
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itsrocky said:
ughhhhh I have seen so many videos of packed beaches and folks out in bars. I think a second wave has already started to swell up where I’m at. I’m the only one at work who wears a mask, and certainly very few owners do. It’s just craziness.
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I know it’s crazy. Well I hope this results in either nothing (great, maybe I’ll feel better about going back to work full time), or a big spike that actually affects the people who attended those crowded events and it becomes *real*.

what would be real annoying is if we maintain a plateau of cases and it never goes down and we continue to have risk with idiots who don’t believe it but continue to propagate it.
 
This was from main campus so things may be slightly different for the vet school, but at least pre-clinical we tend to follow what they do so should be close
We are adjusting the academic calendar for fall to minimize travel to and from campus once the semester begins while maintaining the required number of instructional days. Under the new academic calendar, classes will begin as scheduled on Wednesday, August 19. We will hold classes on Labor Day, September 7, and during fall break, previously scheduled for October 8 and 9. These changes will allow you to leave campus for the semester after classes end on Tuesday, November 24. Final exams will be held online after the Thanksgiving break.
Unfortunately, it is too soon to say how the spread of the virus will impact the dates for in-person commencement and hooding ceremonies.
You can find an updated academic calendar, with the new study days and final exam periods, on the registrar’s website.
If you will be living in a residence hall, University Housing will provide information on move-in and move-out under the new calendar. We are also evaluating the fall 2020 fee structure in light of these changes and will provide updates as soon as they are available.
Like most universities in the country, we are developing a fall schedule that includes at least three types of classes: some taught face-to-face in larger rooms to allow for proper distancing, some taught online, and some that are a combination of both. These changes will require some adjustments to class schedules.
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SkiOtter said:
Oh my god @cdoconn we need to play this again
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I didn’t think we played surgeon stimulator! I thought we just did the clinic/ hospital stimulator (in which we knew not of what test to do for Cushings & Addison’s and... if I’m being honest I still don’t know)

all I know is our fake patient got a LOT of fluids and then died.:laugh:
 
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cdoconn said:
I didn’t think we played surgeon stimulator! I thought we just did the clinic/ hospital stimulator (in which we knew not of what test to do for Cushings & Addison’s and... if I’m being honest I still don’t know)

all I know is our fake patient got a LOT of fluids and then died.:laugh:
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I just remember the time I was there and we did the wrong things on purpose to see how much the simulator would let us get away with it.
 
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SkiOtter said:
You from Florida? :rofl:
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Ha, no. (But much of my family is.) *throws an alligator at you for thinking I was*

I'm from MO but thought the "always" statement was a bit too black-or-white and exaggerated when describing my home state. Fact is, there's no shortage of complete *****s all over the country (world). I'm in a different state now, and it's giving me perspective that sheer idiocy must be a human condition than a state-based attribute. There's both *****s and selfish people (with overlap) doing their part to spread this virus by crowding, breathing, coughing, and generally not giving a damn. It's really infuriating and sad. These are adults, too, in case that's not clear from my post. :lame:
 
itsrocky said:
Are y’all’s hospitals back open yet? I think ours is, with some stipulations.
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K-State is allowing routine appointments again as of this week, but still keeping most clients out of the building. If clients do enter (I imagine for things like euthanasias) they're required to wear a mask. Some 4th years started in the hospital this week, depending on how their rotations lined up. They started online clinics May 11th, so if they started on a 3 week rotation they're finishing it out online, but some people started with a 2 week rotation so they're on their second rotation now. I think as more services get students back they're planning on having them staggered so not everyone is there each day to start out.
 
cdoconn said:
I didn’t think we played surgeon stimulator! I thought we just did the clinic/ hospital stimulator (in which we knew not of what test to do for Cushings & Addison’s and... if I’m being honest I still don’t know)

all I know is our fake patient got a LOT of fluids and then died.:laugh:
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I feel like we did surgeon simulator once but maybe that was @finnickthedog idek :laugh:
 
Michigan State just announced that we will be starting classes on campus in the fall!
 
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sheltermed said:
Michigan State just announced that we will be starting classes on campus in the fall!
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Just keep in mind that email is the main campus and that CVM hasn't emailed us yet (unless you got something 3rd years haven't), so the dates etc listed are not official for us
 
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StayingPositive2017 said:
Just keep in mind that email is the main campus and that CVM hasn't emailed us yet (unless you got something 3rd years haven't), so the dates etc listed are not official for us
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Same situation down here in Texas. The Texas A&M University system announced all campuses (College Station, Kingsville, Corpus Christi, etc.) will resume in-person classes in the Fall, but I haven't heard anything from the veterinary school regarding that matter. :/
 
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We received a survey yesterday with about 12 different options for the setup in the fall and were able to vote on a scale from strongly oppose to strongly favor and leave comments. Some option were definitely better than others so we’ll see what happens
 
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They're talking about some stuff here that seems a little bit wild, like testing all the students once a week in the fall, and testing for virus in the waste water of the dorms daily. We're living in a strange timeline.
 
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WildZoo said:
They're talking about some stuff here that seems a little bit wild, like testing all the students once a week in the fall, and testing for virus in the waste water of the dorms daily. We're living in a strange timeline.
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I want to know where the money for that is coming from.
 
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WildZoo said:
They're talking about some stuff here that seems a little bit wild, like testing all the students once a week in the fall, and testing for virus in the waste water of the dorms daily. We're living in a strange timeline.
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I've heard people call it the darkest timeline, but I can't agree. I know things could always be worse :laugh:
 
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blueheeler said:
Same situation down here in Texas. The Texas A&M University system announced all campuses (College Station, Kingsville, Corpus Christi, etc.) will resume in-person classes in the Fall, but I haven't heard anything from the veterinary school regarding that matter. :/
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I suspect the vet school can't make final decisions until the main campus does, so given this morning's announcement, I'm (optimistically?) guessing that we'll know more in the next week or so.

My guess - based on the reopening plan and on comments from main-campus professors (so not on anything coming from the CVM itself, please don't take this with any authority whatsoever!) - is that they'll probably continue with online lectures but go forward with the smaller, in-person labs. But hey, maybe they'll extend the "hyflex" plan to us as well. If nothing else, I really think we'll be there in the fall. Just not quite in the same capacity they were last fall. But at this point, I'll take it. :shrug:
 
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batsenecal said:
I want to know where the money for that is coming from.
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I think the decision to do that would be made weighing the cost of testing vs the loss from not testing. From my zero minutes of researching it and purely from speculation alone, I feel like the loss from not testing (lost tuition, lawsuits if someone got sick and could prove proper measures weren’t taken, expenses from additional resources used to go back online, etc.) could be far more than the money spent on testing to prevent things like that from happening.
 
Corgi_Queen said:
“On an unrelated note, tuition will be increasing for the 2020-2021 academic year”
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Lol I would have thought that, but they've already stated no tuition increase this year
(this is the entire university btw, not vet school specific)
 
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The vet school officially got approval from the university for us to resume clinics in person in July 6th
 
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My school announced they're planning on testing everyone on campus *through the vet school and not the med school* in the fall.
 
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MixedAnimals77 said:
o_O I do not understand.
Now they're testing our campus through the vet school, but like we don't have a med school on campus...
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Someone answered my sarcastic comment about not losing my parking spot with a VIN article about some VDLs not having the proper stuff to be tested centers. I dont see where else they would do it at our vet med tbh.

And the med school uses the local hospital system. So maybe that's why? So they don't get overrun?
 
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WildZoo said:
Lol I would have thought that, but they've already stated no tuition increase this year
(this is the entire university btw, not vet school specific)
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that’s good at least!
It was a low hanging fruit of a joke, I couldn’t help myself
 
Rite Aid is using a self test that requires you to swab just inside both nostrils, and not your nasopharynx from what it looks like. I’m wondering why that’s the only place I’ve heard of using those tests.
 
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batsenecal said:

UI Plans its Own Center at the College of Veterinary Medicine - Veterinary Medicine at Illinois

News-Gazette (May 28) – Plans are underway on the University of Illinois campus to be in position to test all students who return in the fall. … To accomplish the first part, the UI plans... Read More >
vetmed.illinois.edu vetmed.illinois.edu
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RIP I certainly hope it’s just the samples being run at vet med not them being collected. I’m hoping it’s going to be like the flu shot clinics where they have a couple locations that you can go to so all the main campus people don’t come down to us
 
OSU announced that Fall 2020 will be happening in a hybrid format. Almost all classes over 50 people will be held entirely online, but it seems like labs will likely proceed in person with social distancing measures. We have 73 people and haven't heard officially from the vet school yet, but we have followed everything main campus has done so far. The interesting part is that all in person classes/labs/exams are online only effective immediately after Thanksgiving break (for the last few weeks of the term).
 
johnsmith123 said:
The interesting part is that all in person classes/labs/exams are online only effective immediately after Thanksgiving break (for the last few weeks of the term).
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I’ve heard of at least one other school doing this too. I’m thinking it must be because they don’t want people going somewhere for thanksgiving and coming back to school and having to quarantine for 2 weeks anyway????? That’s my best guess anyway
 
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SkiOtter said:
I’ve heard of at least one other school doing this too. I’m thinking it must be because they don’t want people going somewhere for thanksgiving and coming back to school and having to quarantine for 2 weeks anyway????? That’s my best guess anyway
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My mother in law is a VP at a university and they are doing the same and for that exact reason.
 
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SkiOtter said:
I’ve heard of at least one other school doing this too. I’m thinking it must be because they don’t want people going somewhere for thanksgiving and coming back to school and having to quarantine for 2 weeks anyway????? That’s my best guess anyway
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They talked about this option today for us as well. Idk if the cvm will follow it but we have basically followed main uni as well. Thankfully I should have junior surgery done by then as the last group before ending in person things
 
kcoughli said:
My mother in law is a VP at a university and they are doing the same and for that exact reason.
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I'm hoping schools are going to ask people to quarantine for 2 weeks before fall term if they're concerned about travel. A lot of people went home when spring term was moved online. We haven't heard anything about that yet, but it would defeat the purpose of cancelling after Thanksgiving if we don't quarantine anyone travelling back from summer.
 
johnsmith123 said:
I'm hoping schools are going to ask people to quarantine for 2 weeks before fall term if they're concerned about travel. A lot of people went home when spring term was moved online. We haven't heard anything about that yet, but it would defeat the purpose of cancelling after Thanksgiving if we don't quarantine anyone travelling back from summer.
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I would be really surprised if they didn't
 
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StayingPositive2017 said:
I would be really surprised if most people actually did it
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I thought at the start of all this, that vet students would be the best of the best with following regulations. I learned very quickly that was not the case. The school cancelled classes and highly recommended avoiding travel outside of the immediate area unless absolutely necessary. The next day, half the school flies home. The state puts out a mandatory stay at home order, prohibiting gatherings of more than a few people who don't live in the same household. A few weeks later, numerous people who don't live together are on the zoom call together, others are posting pictures of their extended family gatherings (often with at least one elderly person), and people going about their lives on social media assuming that social distancing means close contact with people they don't live with without wearing any kind of PPE. It's massively disappointing but I'll go ahead and waltz right off my soap box before I spend all day ranting about medical professionals' noncompliance with seriously important public health endeavors.
 
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