There are 4 comments on Weekly COVID Compliance Report: October 30

1. …Again BU’s draconian advances for useless compliance amaze me-you cannot legally turn of their off-campus learning sectioned wifi and their ability to get food on campus because they are not filling out BUs useless attestations. If people are paying (which as I understand is a high amount at BU) for goods and services you cannot act as a dictator and turn that off. Enjoy lawsuits.

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2. When you send mixed messages, perhaps that leads to noncompliance. On the one hand the Dean of Students tells the students if they gather in groups larger than 25, they’ll be punished for noncompliance. Then on the other hand he tells them that if they want to participate in large rallies, don’t let covid-19 worries stop you–Go For It!

   You can’t have it both ways.

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   1. Well, the limits on private gatherings are meant to get BU students to follow the Massachusetts COVID-19 guidelines which limit private gatherings to 25 maximum indoors with everyone wearing masks; neither Massachusetts or BU is able to ban a political protest for anything due to the first amendment and in the Mass guidelines, there’s a part about that, as I’m sure there also was in Michigan when the anti-lockdown people were protesting. All things considered, a socially distanced outdoor protest for a few hours where everyone is wearing masks, even if there is 300 people is much less risky than 24 unmasked people inside a crowded room with no social distancing, no masks and dancing/talking loudly for a party that goes until 2 a.m. since COVID mostly spreads by aerosols and respitory droplets, it seems like the rules don’t make sense until you look into the science of it- there is a really interesting COVID-19 risk simulator from MIT that shows how much different factors affect risk like: type of ventilation (outdoor, open window, commercial or hospital air filtration), size of the room, (if indoors), weather or not people are wearing masks, amount of people and length of exposure, and even level of activity (breathing heavily, talking loudly or quietly). Ten people in masks staying six feet apart with an open window and, for example, studying quietly would mean that the length of time it takes to build up the aerosols and respitory droplets necessary to cause a distinct chance of transmission is much longer than the same conditions if everyone is unmasked and talking over loud music close together at a party. So I get that it feels unfair and like these are arbitrary rules, but they’re really, really not based on the science. Which is why BU students who were at an off campus party with no masks had a cluster of 14 cases from a single night. I’m not saying it’s easy to follow the guidelines or that it’s fun or that it makes sense on the surface, but truly, there is actual science, research and evidence from studying transmission to show that, yes, outdoor protests with masks are much less risky than an indoor party.

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3. How many of the students not in compliance are students who live off-campus (and maybe just haven’t changed their LfA status)??

   Off-campus students do not need campus wifi or meal plan swipes which means the warnings mean almost nothing to them.

   I am not suggesting different/worse punishment I am merely suggesting that there might be a reason so many are not complying each week.

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