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2/ First, the obvious: they are mandating that all classes, regardless of size, must be in person. This includes, for example, my class with >200 students, who pack the lecture hall to near-capacity. Meanwhile, covid cases in Ohio: (death rate in OH is also at an all-time high)
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3/ Maybe there is a legitimate rationale for this policy. Maybe there is an argument that the ethics of contagion are different once the disease is endemic and vaccines are available. I would have at least respected an attempt to provide such an argument.
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4/ But it is truly infuriating to get emails every day from the administration saying "the health and safety of our students and employees is our top priority!" No, it obviously isn't. If it was then you'd at least be willing to wait a few weeks until the omicron surge is over.
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6/ This dashboard has been updated continuously for nearly two years. But on Dec. 17 (just as the omicron surge was starting in earnest) they paused all updates, with some bullshit excuse about how there are fewer students on campus during the winter.
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7/ (Somehow this was never an issue in past winter or summer terms.) This data is still on pause. So no data, not from the campus or from the state, was being shown as the semester was getting started.
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8/ Meanwhile all of us instructors were getting many emails from students saying "I have covid and have to quarantine, how am I going to make up missed in-person assignments?" A good 10% of my students have told me that they are in quarantine.
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9/ Just yesterday they released a single data point, saying that student test positivity rate during the first week of class was 10% (!!) much higher than it has ever been before. The dashboard is still on pause, and apparently set to resume on Monday.
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10/10 If they had any conscience then when they resume they would release the data from the past two months also, so that we can all see what a disaster this has been. But I'm betting that they won't.
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(Possibly, but not provably) related epilogue: my infant son has just tested positive for covid. ☹️ So now the lecture has to go online anyway. Who could have predicted that this would happen.
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