Thursday, November 12, 2020
Pitt Tightens Student Restrictions After Case Spike, Prepares For Winter
90.5 WESA: The University of Pittsburgh is caught in a complicated balancing act of trying to educate students while keeping the community and students’ home communities safe.
Mark Roberts a member of the University’s Healthcare Advisory Group and director of the university's Health Dynamics Laboratory, says as the weather gets colder people are more likely to gather indoors. And he says that continuing to follow coronavirus guidelines, like mask wearing, is essential.
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In all honesty, I am surprised that CMU hasn't had more cases. However, with the current testing system for off-campus people, I am not surprised if our numbers are lower than that. I don't get how people find it so difficult to wear their masks incorrectly or not at all. Also, why would anyone be having large gatherings right now, they are so dangerous and just not necessary? I would feel so uncomfortable and unsafe if I was in a large gathering of people I don't understand how people do it without feeling bad or guilty or nervous. It just makes me upset that if people wore their masks properly and followed proper protocols about distancing and events the number of cases in the United States as a whole would be so much lower even if it was just for two weeks. Places like New Zealand have been successful with their efforts and even if the US is profoundly bigger their methods can be applied here maybe at the state level.
The article, seemingly, casually states that 73 students at the University of Pittsburgh tested positive in about 5 days. That is terrible. I know of countries that go for about 2 weeks with less than 5 cases. With that in mind, there are lots of things that are being done wrong here. I suppose with Halloween and the recent election, we were bound to see a rise all across America as lots of people got out of their homes and met with others. And as heart-warming as it was to see all of the people gathered together to celebrate the results of the election, it was very alarming to see not only that there was no social distancing but that many people had on no personal protective equipment. As predicted, things are rising. I'm not the biggest fan of fear-mongering, but boy oh boy do we need to signal some alarms. Especially among younger university crowds who will be traveling home for the holidays and interacting with many different people throughout that process. People are literally dying here...
It has been intriguing to follow Pitt's Covid-19 data, especially in comparison to CMU's. From the start of the school year, Pitt has had a much harder time enforcing compliance with safety rules. Of course, with an undergrad population almost 3 times that of CMU, it makes sense that they would have more cases and issues in general. However, their rates of infection have FAR outpaced that of CMU and other nearby universities. It is very upsetting to see that even though I am doing everything right (as best as I can, I'm not perfect), I am still being put at significant risk by the actions of others who have decided to ignore science and spit in the face of communal responsibility. Frankly, I am surprised that Pitt didn't go back into shelter-in-place earlier, given their continually rising case numbers. As Apriah mentioned, there are entire countries that have better numbers that Pitt has, which is incredibly embarrassing.
Honestly I'm pretty surprised that the number of cases at Pitt are not higher right now. Halloweekend just happened and UPitt kids as well as thousands of college kids around the country could not resist partying (which is disgusting). I definitely think its a little unfair to compare the case numbers at Pitt to those at CMU as Pitt has a much larger population in general and especially now with Pitt allowing more students on campus. CMU has definitely been a lot better with making sure people are following social distancing guidelines and are wearing their mask, keeping the number shockingly low. I think colleges around the country with large number will not shut down until the government asks them to especially after asking all the students to go home in the spring. I think people need to take this entire virus more seriously as there are literally people dying from this virus. You will survive if you don't go to your frat parties and social distance for just one semester. I think what a lot of these students are not realizing is they are increasing the number of cases exponentially and it will most likely cause a second lockdown to happen right when spring semester starts, causing us to stay home. It is time for people to grow up and not just think about themeselves.
I was originally really in favor of in-person classes and doing as much “normally” as possible. Primarily because as a TD student, I lose a lot of my education when everything has to be remote, but also because I thought that university could act as bubbles. My undergrad experience was almost entirely insular and so I incorrectly assumed dorms and universities could act as a self-contained community and not bring cases in from the outside. That is not how anything works and oh boy was I naïve. I also incorrectly assumed people would just be responsible adults but the number of Halloween party TikToks I’ve seen is infuriating. Also the fact that we know cases will go up as it gets colder and more people gather indoors means we know people were gathering outdoors over the summer and fall, which is also very annoying. That being said, I think universities expected this, I was just foolish, and have not planned accordingly. There should be way more testing and there should be more transparency about cases.
This article scared me a little. The people in my inner circle are all very responsible, so I forget that there are others who still do not take this pandemic seriously. I understand that Pitt has a significantly larger student population, but the number of cases is very surprising to me. I don't understand how they still allow in person classes at this point, even when issuing a shelter in place order to the students. The amount of parties I have heard about is truly infuriating, and the number of cases that resulted from Halloween weekend shows the importance of simply being a decent person and not partying. I worry about winter break, and the potential for not being able to return to campus in the spring. As the article said, more people will be gathering indoors due to the cold weather, and the holidays are usually a busy travel time. I hope we do not face a severe second wave.
Whenever someone had asked me in July and August if I thought I would still have the option to go to campus to work throughout the semester, I would look at them like they were crazy. I have been thoroughly impressed by Carnegie Mellon and Pitt’s efforts to combat the spread of the coronavirus. This article brought up a good point about the weather that I had never really thought about before. In the past, whenever people started talking about the weather and how it would affect case numbers, I always thought they were talking about the virus’ viability in the different temperatures. However, what this article pointed out is that when it gets cold outside, people do not hang out outside anymore and find indoor hangout spots which we know are far more susceptible to spreading the virus. This was more of a “duh” moment and it will be interesting to see how this second wave is impacted by the holidays.
While I am kind of ashamed to admit it, I am very surprised that both CMU and UPitt have managed to make it this far without extremely high upticks in cases. Especially for us here at CMU, we have seen a considerably low positive rate among both our faculty and student base, which makes me especially hopeful for the months to come. We've shown that we can make sacrifices, now we just have to continue forward with that same level of strength and dedication. Now onto more of the article itself, I have to say that I found Roberts's attitude towards the relationship between education and the pandemic to be a little cavalier. Sure, it's important to acknowledge that no attempt to ensure both the safety of the students and staff and the quality of education provided at their best will completely work, but he sounded very nonchalant about the idea of people getting sick. I value health and safety above the educational factor at this current moment, so just accepting that people will get sick and could potentially die like that seems wrong to me. This is especially true considering that UPitt's numbers seem to be much higher than ours, so I'm just interested and cautiously optimistic of what is to come in the coming months.
This is frustrating all around because I feel like Pitt could’ve have been more careful from the start, and really, there would be less cases at Pitt had their students not partied as normal during Halloween weekend. Hearing that their dining halls will now be open for take-away only is alarming, are you telling me that they were able to eat in person beforehand? When students started to come to Pittsburgh for the fall semester, I was shocked driving through the campus and seeing that so many people were unmasked. I think this is a clear indication that some universities are taking it more seriously than others, as CMU has so few positive cases. And this is worrisome because Pitt is located in the middle of the city, not a far-away college campus that can act as it’s own little community. Pitt students shop at the same places as us, which means no matter how careful I am, no matter how much I quarantine, I could get Covid from someone at the grocery store who didn’t think a Halloween party was such a big deal. I am now of the belief that if you host a party, someone gets covid and dies from covid, you should face a manslaughter charge. Making the stakes so high is the only way to stop parties, weddings, and mass gatherings where people think they are above the virus.
Like everyone else has stated in their comments, I am not surprised about the amount of cases increasing on Pitt campus. Just from knowing the Pitt students I am close with, they have such a hard time being in compliance with health rules and regulations. Since August, they had 442 students test positive, which is insane. I’m surprised CMU numbers aren’t larger but you have to look at the social differences of the groups. Pitt Campus is integrated into city life. They have all their food on one street and they all live on the same like 6-7 streets next to each other. Partying and hanging out in large groups is much more apart of the norm on their campus, and CMU students tend to hang in smaller groups and don’t party as often. None of that is an excuse for their negligence, it’s just very interesting to have been a close witness to both environments and see how the cases rise in such different ways.
It was interesting to read this article now after having read the messages sent to my email from Pitt and then especially interesting to read the comments about the happenings relating to this. Because I participate in the cross-registration program, I am a full Pitt student in addition to being a full time CMU student. So, I have been getting constant email updates and restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic. Pitt is actually handling this situation extremely well in my opinion. I would even be so bold as to say I think they are handling this situation as a university much better than Carnegie Mellon University. However, the students are a different story. I am led to believe that CMU students are utilizing safer practices while the students at Pitt are not. This was clearly evident at the start of the year when it was still warm, and you could walk down the area and mass gatherings of people were occurring. Meanwhile, CMU is dead, not a soul to be seen on campus when I have visited the few times I have gone to campus.
If I’m being completely honest, I’m not all that surprised that Pitt is having a surge in cases. Fairly regularly when I’ve been on errands to CVS or on a walk I’ve seen large groups of Pitt students seemingly acting like everything was normal and out partying, etc. It’s also such a large school that it seems like it could be hard keeping the number of cases down without extremely strict regulations. Even still, 442 students testing positive is not good, and having 40 new cases in one weekend is not good. CMU seems to have been much stricter with Covid policies and tracking so I’m not too surprised that our cases aren’t as high. I also understand that in person classes are much more enjoyable and tend to be a better education, however I don’t think Pitt’s rules were good enough from the start. Yes, balancing safety and school is important, but people are dying from this and the country is worsening again. Saying “We won't get it perfect, right? There will be cases of infection. There will be people who didn't have as good an educational experience.” is too careless.
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