They are going to have to find a place for all of them after quarantine.
It seems like any chance of containing this virus has been lost. As a result, it seems like a widespread pandemic is already occurring and it will hit the US sooner rather than later. In fact, bringing these students back from Europe seems more likely to hasten the spread. Isn't the reality that we just need to accept that this virus is out there, that we are all likely to get it, and to hope for effective treatment and/or a vaccine sooner rather than later.
the number of people who eventually get infected.
One way or another, an epidemic will evolve to the point of steady endemic infection or herd immunity for the population at large. One way to get there is massive levels of infection. The problem with that is more people will suffer the disease than is otherwise needed to get to a steady state. For disease with a non-trivial mortality rate, that also means more people die than otherwise needed.
In the absence of a vaccine, slowing the rate of infection through containment and social distancing is the right strategy.
One of those travel tours led by a couple of teachers at his high school. It is getting interesting now. Their communications have been horrible about the process at this point. Some investigating shows that because of the Level 3, they have halted tours to Italy, so we know he's not going, but they haven't notified us of anything yet.
It seems like they can either send them someplace else that week (he chose the trip because of Italy not to visit someplace else) or change when they go and reschedule the trip (My guess is that this is difficult with a bunch of HS kids).
In any case, it seems like the tour company isn't going to want to give out refunds, so we are subject to cancelation policies if the option they choose doesn't work for us - oh, and at 30 days out, most of the stuff is non-refundable and we are at 33 days right now...
Going to be a fun couple days for the trip leaders, who set a meeting with the students for 29 days out to make a decision (not the brightest there) and have yet to communicate directly to the parents.
Don’t wait until 29 days out if the policy is 30 days.
I reached out last night to the trip organizer to let him know of the "math" around the dates and the implications.
are contained then.
vacation in China but Europe Caribbean are all going to be deals.
I understand that there are high odds that the virus will die in hotter temps.
But we needed to either commit to this meeting or not, so we officially pulled out this week.
The Mrs. and I would like to go to the Adriatic and Greece in mid September. I’m sure airfares will go down for Spring and early summer, but I’m doubtful that the sales will extend into the early fall.
with my graduate school program. It's not looking good.
If we make it back, you'll know it's safe.
Of course she’s pissed.
My ND sister did the SMC Rome program, and it was an awesome experience for her. I'm sorry that your daughter has to head home early.
I hope SMC gives her the option of going back (if her major allows for it), but I certainly understand they’re under no obligation to do so and I don’t fault them at all.
I had no idea how much the Notre Dame study abroad program has expanded. 75% of kids study abroad for credit before they graduate.
49
semester and academic-year programs
24
summer programs
28
countries
#7
leading institution by undergraduate participation
This guy is too much — “Third-year architecture student Dominic Grimes expressed his frustration regarding the situation. The University tried their best, I guess, but the major reason that I chose this University was to live in Rome for a year and now I feel robbed of that experience in its totality and the whole program now feels like a waste to me,” third-year architecture student Dominic Grimes said in a text.”
Sorry you were fraudulently induced into attending ND, dear. Covid-19 was completely foreseeable.
It would have been difficult to make it any more quickly. This thing blew up here this week. It didn't occur to me when we left on Monday to ski for three days in Austria that I would spend this weekend planning online instruction for next week just in case. No decision has been made on that yet.
Meanwhile, we've had tens of thousands of hospitalizations and hundreds of deaths here due to influenza--it has been a nasty year for it.
Evacuations from programs in Florence (which is closer to Lombardy than Rome) started on Tuesday. There weren't any cases reported in Italy two weeks ago, outside of two Chinese tourists in Rome (a city of 3 million people). Let's not blow this out of proportion.