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MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

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Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#301

Post by harikb »

iokanuon wrote: post #205
kyeb wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In what way are dorms worse than personal homes for diseases anyway? Are they not trusting their students to prepare their own food? Why don't they just close the dining halls instead? The dorms have shared bathrooms, often shared rooms with doubles, triples, and quads, and shared living spaces (lounges, study rooms, laundry, etc.) in addition to the dining halls. Moreover, in our dorms, we have effectively no way t…

>Moreover, in our dorms, we have effectively no way to eat if the dining halls close down. That sounds crazy to me, in Poland there's a multitude of cheap restaurants full of students close to every university campus. There's a big demand because universities are packed with students that don't cook for themselves. Why hasn't the same happened to the US then?

How could the students or the university trust restaurants stay open? They can't just let the students fight for themselves. I am sure this is the 'least bad option' out of many.

Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#302

Post by JabavuAdams »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #163
wegs wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not an epidemiologist, but a Boston resident. Generally, people under 30 completely ignore anything about the coronavirus here. You have people hitting a different nightclub each night, going to parties, and that sort of thing. A college town full of students who see their risk as 0.1% is not what you want right now. Now, a more sensible thing might be to close the nightclubs, bars, and parties. But the city hasn't d…

So you have tens of thousands of people, who all have been in close proximity, now exposing their risk to their family. And if these college students have any elderly family members, that could pose a serious risk. By forcing people to go home, rather than shelter in place, everyone has increased contact with others and public infrastructure where the virus could be.

Healthcare load-balancing.

Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#303

Post by [deleted] »

nightfly wrote: post #4
JPKab wrote: post #2

One of my coworkers daughters is affected by this. The big question this begs: If there is no refund being offered for the content shifting online from in-person, why have in-person at all? Is room and board going to be refunded? If courses being taught online is an acceptable substitute, why have caps on admission at all? Edit: Understood that infinite sized classes aren't workable for human intensive grading, inter…

At other schools the online offerings for courses can be more expensive than the in-person offerings. Online doesn't mean that you have unlimited capacity for students. You still need to grade homework and exams, offer virtual "office hours", answer emails.

[deleted]

Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#304

Post by empath75 »

chrisco255 wrote: post #113
smallgovt wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, I think it's likely going to be seen as an overreaction in hindsight by the general public (even though it may not be). If these actions are successful in curbing the virus' spread, most people won't appreciate how bad things could have really gotten.

So what do we do if this virus festers for another couple of years? We can't shut down society forever.

They can just slow it down and prevent hospital systems from becoming overwhelmed. A lot of people will get immunity to it, which should confer some herd immunity that will protect older people.

They’re eventually going to lift quarantines after it burns out in different areas.

Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#305

Post by kart23 »

ryeights wrote: post #177
generationP wrote: post #144

> Undergraduates who live in an MIT residence or fraternity, sorority or independent living group (FSILG) must begin packing and departing this Saturday, March 14. We are requiring undergraduates to depart from campus residences no later than noon on Tuesday, March 17. This is strange. Isn't the travel they are forcing quite possibly a cure worse than the disease? And are they really expecting students (many of them…

>This is strange. Isn't the travel they are forcing quite possibly a cure worth than the disease? Many (most?) students already travel for spring break, so this shouldn't result in much more travel than usual. I imagine that is what motivated their timing on this.

International students are gonna be in a very tough spot, especially those from china.

Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#306

Post by leggomylibro »

wegs wrote: post #135
mumblemumble wrote: post #51

The "empty out campus" bit seems a bit overmuch to me. What's the epidemiologists' take on something like this? I can see asking students who left for spring break not to come back. But asking students currently on campus to leave, and even demanding that they travel internationally, seems like it might just increase everyone's risk of exposure, and spread it around. Especially considering that, at least according to…

Not an epidemiologist, but a Boston resident. Generally, people under 30 completely ignore anything about the coronavirus here. You have people hitting a different nightclub each night, going to parties, and that sort of thing. A college town full of students who see their risk as 0.1% is not what you want right now. Now, a more sensible thing might be to close the nightclubs, bars, and parties. But the city hasn't d…

Boston has had confirmed cases for quite some time; about 70 of them came from the same conference meeting. The area's "patient zero" event happened like a week ago.

Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#307

Post by kart23 »

fwipsy wrote: post #264
PureParadigm wrote: post #50

I think large decisive moves like this may seem to some to be an overreaction, but it will prove to be the correct decision in hindsight (like the early travel bans). Exponential growth is real, and anything we can do to slow the rate of infection will save lives. As a current undergrad at UC Berkeley, they've moved all classes here online [1], and exams are either being postponed or converted to take-home assignment…

So far, I've heard that UCSD, UCSC, UC Davis, and Stanford have taken similar precautions to Berkeley.

UC Irvine as well!

Not excited to install a rootkit on my computer to take finals, but oh well.

Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#309

Post by JabavuAdams »

better_names wrote: post #98

> to slow a spreading virus like COVID-19 The naming of this thing is such a disaster, even MIT can't get it right. - the virus is called SARS-CoV-2 (like HIV) - the disease it causes is named COVID-19 (like AIDS) - pretty much everyone calls both the virus and the disease coronavirus

Is this causing any actual or damaging confusion? Why care?

Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#310

Post by perennate »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #138
chrisseaton wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's a limit to how well thought out you can expect the response to a global pandemic that's emerged in just a couple of months to be. Sorry it isn't perfect?

Taiwan seems to be handling it extremely well, but over there they had first-hand experience with SARS, and they had plans in place for when it was going to be back, because consensus was that it was going to be back.

Indeed, they were implementing preventive measures as early as December 31 [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_outbreak_in_T...

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