Thread by @LoriAMacNeil

A return to in-person learning in Canadian universities this fall, without a #VaccineMandate and other mitigation measures, is rife with complications. And many questions. A thread 🧵1/
#HigherEd #Ontario #OntEd #VaccinesWork

The largest class I am teaching in-person this fall has 120 students. If we estimate that 70% will be fully vaccinated by this fall, that means this class will have 84 vaccinated students, 36 unvaccinated students, and 1 vaccinated prof spending 3-hrs together every week.

Current estimates suggest that two doses of an mRNA vaccine are ~88% effective against the #DeltaVariant. So if a student brings Delta to class, we are looking at an outbreak with many infections - mostly in the unvaccinated students - but also in ~10 fully vaccinated students.

How many other classes will these students attend before knowing they are infected? How many more students in THOSE classes will become infected? How many family members (and children who cannot be vaccinated) will become infected?

Keep in mind that university students do not cohort. An infected but asymptomatic student could attend and spread the virus to five different ~100 person classes within a few days. Between classes, students walk (and wait) in jam-packed hallways, eat together, and work together.

Now let’s circle back to everyone else in the 120-person class with the original outbreak. What happens to those who attended that class but appear asymptomatic? Do we need to isolate? Get tested? Do nothing?

Assuming that everyone in the class needs to isolate and get tested before returning to in-person learning, who teaches my other classes in the meantime? What happens to my two young children – do they continue to go to school and daycare?

For all the students isolating and getting tested – what accommodations will be in place when they miss all of their other in-person classes? Is the province prepared for this massive influx of testing, which will coincide with a surge in testing from elem/secondary schools?

Now let’s consider what class delivery will actually look like. Likely, many professors won’t want to require students to attend in-person classes when they may not feel safe doing so. Which means that we won’t be allocating marks to in-class exercises, participation, and so on.

Students who feel unsafe attending class, or choose not to attend class because they don’t “have to” for marks, will now be back to learning on their computers at home, but without true online instruction.

Instead, they’ll be teaching themselves from their textbooks or slides posted without narration or explanation. This is a definite step down from the #onlinelearning we’ve been implementing for the last year and a half.

As far as I can tell, the only mitigation measure that will be in place in many university classrooms this fall is masking. No social distancing. No mention of any changes to #ventilation. So tell me, who is policing this mask requirement?

Am I standing at the front of the classroom, scanning 120 faces looking for people who have their masks on their chins? Do I stop teaching to tell them to put their mask back on? Are the students expected to do this and call out other students?

If I am lecturing for 3-hrs with a mask on, what does this look like? Do I stand in one place and use a microphone, while trying to not get too animated or boisterous? Is this delivery really any better than a recorded or zoom-based lecture?

It’s starting to feel like the goal is to get back to normal, no matter what. What measures are in place to ensure we’re not walking into a campus-wide outbreak? Who exactly are we putting first in this “plan”? Why does it feel like there is no plan?

A vaccine mandate would signal a commitment to keeping campus as safe as possible. It should be the bare minimum for establishing a safe learning environment. It’s time to protect the altruistic members of our community and quit pandering to the selfish. /END