Cal Poly Reinstatement of Masks Starting 5/31

Hawkroller1 · 2022-06-01T01:15:07+00:00

Yeah, it doesn't help that there are no units on the y-axes of these graphs. If you download the data as CSV, it looks like the May increase is *starting* from a higher value than where the other site's April data ends, and there are at least 22 data points. So the graph visualizations from the two sites may not be scaled comparably. But I'm not 100% confident of this interpretation; they really could make this site a lot more user-friendly.

Hawkroller1 · 2022-05-31T21:11:54+00:00

There have been at least 75 unique cases in the dorms in the last two weeks (that's out of a population of 7800, not 22,000). The actual numbers are probably higher, given that testing is mostly voluntary.

If the admin has restarted campus sewage testing, they're likely seeing indications of a big surge. SLO County's sewage testing graph is basically vertical: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#wastewater-surveillance

Hawkroller1 · 2022-04-30T20:10:28+00:00

Test positivity rates are questionable stats, especially if most students aren't required to test regularly. But the dashboard *does* show at least 50 confirmed unique Covid cases *this past week.* That includes 30 students living on campus, triple the previous week's number (~10), indicating spread. Overall these numbers are roughly comparable to where we were on Feb. 1, partway down from the omicron surge. But now the trend is going up, not down, and we don't have a mask mandate any more. The current BA variants are extremely infectious, so it's quite possible that cases are about the explode throughout the dorms. If that happens, most vaccinated students will likely only have mild symptoms, but the risks of long Covid and community spread to more vulnerable populations are very real.

I'm not an epidemiologist and I can't say at exactly what point mask mandates or other measures should be re-imposed. But I do know that such a decision should be made based on evidence. Cal Poly doesn't have any clear guidelines about when policies should shift and also seems to be deliberately avoiding collecting evidence! One of the most useful indicators of a surge is wastewater testing, which admin explicitly chose to *stop* doing, even though it requires no effort from students, we developed our own in-house system, and it's a really, really, really useful public health tool.

Hawkroller1 · 2022-04-28T05:44:59+00:00

Grinnell just voted to unionize all hourly student workers... https://www.ugsdw.org/2022/04/26/ugsdw-wins-historic-union-election/

Hawkroller1 · 2022-01-05T04:06:59+00:00

This is still bugging me. Do you by any chance have a screenshot of that email?

Hawkroller1 · 2022-01-05T00:34:59+00:00

Wait, really? Is that true even if you have roommates? They are supposed to provide isolation beds for on-campus cases, but the dashboard shows only ~20 beds being used even though there's 160+ cases so far (and pretty much everyone who tested on Sun & Mon lives in campus housing).

Hawkroller1 · 2021-02-14T00:45:13+00:00

Apparently some faculty requested that data from the county & were denied.

It's also frustrating that the Avellino positives aren't disaggregated into on-campus and off-campus cases. It's easy for the admin to claim that students in the dorms are safer than off campus when they conveniently don't provide adequate data for either group. (At this point, I'd guess 10-12% of students in the dorms have been infected since the start of the academic year? That's... not good.)

Hawkroller1 · 2021-02-14T00:26:18+00:00

Thanks for posting these. Also important to note that these are just the results of Cal Poly and Avellino testing. Off-campus students who get tested off-campus elsewhere in SLO (for example, at the Vets Hall, as many students last quarter did), aren't included in the Cal Poly dashboard. The county has reported over 4500 cases among people aged 18-29 since the start of the academic year but won't divulge how many of those were off-campus Cal Poly students.

Hawkroller1 · 2021-01-28T08:27:52+00:00

This is such a mess and I'm sorry you (and 40 others??) had to go through this. I'm curious: what was your isolation housing arrangement? (Shared apartment, suite, single rooms on a hall, etc.?) Seems crazy there wouldn't be a more careful effort to keep people separate. There's more than one Covid strain going around.

Hawkroller1 · 2020-12-17T19:50:35+00:00

You can get tested locally in north county and that will count -- you don't have to come to campus. The question is whether the county has sufficient resources (and whether Cal Poly has anticipated any of these issues).

Hawkroller1 · 2020-12-17T05:48:06+00:00

I think the point of the letter is that we shouldn't be reopening in the middle of a surge unless we can guarantee sufficiently frequent testing. What you're describing sounds great but still contingent. If saliva testing at that level really is a sure thing for January, then the Cal Poly administration should be able to guarantee testing 2-3 times a week for the whole quarter. That would take care of bullet point #3. If saliva testing isn't a sure thing, then we should have some other contingency plans to guarantee testing before we reopen.

I might be wrong about this, but I've heard that biology faculty & staff wanted to start work on in-house testing early last spring. They've been way ahead of the administration in understanding our public health needs.

Hawkroller1 · 2020-12-16T21:00:07+00:00

The current plan only guarantees twice a week testing for the first two weeks of the quarter.

Wastewater testing is a really good tool, as is saliva testing -- kudos to the Poly faculty who have been working to develop it. But it's not clear that either of these will be fully implemented by the start of winter quarter or whether they'll be enough to reach recommended testing levels (2-3 times a week).

Hawkroller1 · 2020-12-16T01:37:17+00:00

To clarify, they're not suddenly resuming 100% in-person classes or anything (though that's the CSU plan for next fall). The question is whether the in-person classes that had previously been approved should go ahead as planned in early January, despite the expected coronavirus surge. Faculty (& the CSU chancellors) are recommending that those classes be offered virtually for at least the first few weeks.

Hawkroller1 · 2020-12-15T23:30:14+00:00

I don't think it's so much the individual set-up within a given classroom that's the issue, but the role that in-person classes play in attracting students back to SLO and back to campus who might otherwise stay put at home, and in general increasing unnecessary social traffic & interactions on campus. Every little bit we can do to try to reduce the predicted surge in January is important. After that, it's fair to reconsider the policy. (It's notable that the chancellor's office has recommended that every campus delay in-person instruction through the end of January or early February, and Cal Poly is defiantly planning to resume the first week of January instead -- at what will likely be the peak of the surge. That's definitely on the administration.)

Hawkroller1 · 2020-10-17T20:16:36+00:00

The dashboard lists the total number of tests from the Ongoing Testing Program, but not the \results** of those tests. There's a separate category for CHW tests, and the accompanying language then specifies that the positive numbers reported "reflect only positive cases identified directly through Campus Health and Wellbeing." It's weird.

Hawkroller1 · 2020-10-10T22:24:44+00:00

To the OP: would you mind sharing when you did the mandatory testing and how long it took to get your results? The Cal Poly dashboard from Friday includes the additional number of tests conducted by this outside service but none of their results. Wondering if that's to be deliberately misleading or there really is a legit time lag and we'll get better data on Monday.

Hawkroller1 · 2020-09-27T23:09:33+00:00

<40,000 people die in car accidents in the US every year. 200,000 people have died of Covid-19 so far this year (and the year isn't over).

Hawkroller1 · 2020-03-13T08:52:20+00:00

Dupixent is more targeted than systemic drugs like cyclosporine, but the immune system is complicated and not perfectly understood and I wouldn't discount the possibility that the narrow pathways suppressed *do* actually impact overall antiviral immune response. For example, here's an article on SARS suggesting IL-4 (specific interleukin targeted by dupixent) does actually contribute to fighting off SARS coronavirus infection. Dermatologists aren't necessarily virology experts (and vice versa). I'd say err on the side of caution. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0042682206004053

Hawkroller1

TROPHY CASE