Posted on 08/29/2021 8:48:39 PM PDT by lightman
Students at Amherst College are about to face some of the toughest COVID restrictions in the country as they begin the Fall 2021 semester next month.
The private liberal arts college, located in Amherst, Massachusetts, announced the tightened public health rules Tuesday in response to concerns about the spread of the Delta variant. For now, the restrictions will apply from move-in until September 13 (via The Amherst Student):
The restrictions include: indoor double-mask mandates, two Covid tests upon arrival, a bi-weekly testing requirement, limits on indoor gathering sizes, off-campus travel restrictions and an elimination of in-person dining services.
Upon arrival, students will receive both a PCR test and a rapid antigen test. The college has decided that in accordance with guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), anyone who has tested positive for Covid will be put into isolation for 10 days in either designated dorm rooms or at home for students and staff respectively. The college is not offering standard remote learning options this year, but class deans will assist quarantined students so that they will not fall behind on school work.
...
Amherst will require all employees, faculty and students to wear face coverings while inside campus buildings — regardless of their vaccination status, according to an email sent from Martin on Aug. 16. The masking requirement was enhanced as of Aug. 24: all students must double-mask (wear two pleated filter masks on top of one another) if they are not wearing a KN95 mask in classrooms and other academic spaces operating at 100 percent capacity.
Community members could originally unmask in their residence halls, but that is no longer the case. Masks are now required to be worn in residence hall common areas, until at least Sept. 13. Students may unmask in their own dorm rooms. Alternatively, when indoors and outside of their residence halls, unvaccinated students must be masked at all times unless they are alone with the door closed. If outdoors, unvaccinated students must wear face coverings when a six-foot distance cannot be maintained. All community members must mask up if they are attending a gathering of more than 25 people, regardless of the location on campus.
...
Students will be permitted to visit the town of Amherst, masked when indoors, for the purpose of “conducting business” (i.e. opening bank accounts and picking up prescriptions). Students are not allowed to go to restaurants or bars.
Events and sports competitions are slated to take place as scheduled. Spectators are allowed but must be masked. No pre or post-game tailgating or celebrations will be permitted. Large events will be minimized and there will be no registered parties indoors on the campus grounds. No events with alcohol will be permitted at the beginning of the semester.
Sounds more like prison than school, but hey, if parents are still down with paying $70,000 per year for their kids to live like convicts in order to try to avoid a virus that poses little risk to young, healthy people, so be it
Yep, college life under a basic 24-hour curfew, wearing masks, etc. Doesn’t sound fun.
No oxygen for you!!
I know... to achieve the strictest possible regimen of COVID restrictions, simple don’t let any students in at all. Let them wander the countryside, but no one goes to Amherst at all. That will solve the problem all right.
Waxman apparently was the victim of certain “Man-Rodent” breeding experiments in the early fifties. Shame that.
“I’m Frank Lyman from Amherst” (Animal House reference)
Students are not allowed to go to restaurants or bars.
Anyone that goes there is certifiable. Holy crap.
The Dunking Chairs are the new COVID tests. If you die from being held underwater for three minutes, then it is proven you do not have COVID. Otherwise you must be burned at the stake.
Being allowed to go without masks in one’s one dorm room is counterintuitive. The tiny virus is circulated in the air of the dorm and can easily move into and out of dorm rooms.
This nonsense is not supported by any science.
Funny you should say that as I have always believed a book could be written as to how New England Liberals, led by all the colleges up there, reflect the ethos of their predecessors in that they see themselves as the Elect; consider anyone who disagrees with them as "heretics" deserving of punishment; strive to impose their views on all others, for their own good, of course. I could go on but that is the basic skeleton for an interesting social analysis.
I guess they wont be having Provincetown orgies.
These colleges and universities are intentionally tanking their enrollment with these policies so they can blame COVID for their financial losses instead of their own poor product. They can then get taxpayer funds to bail them out.
I think it’s as simple as, the administrators and other “smart people” would rather run their institutions into the ground than admit they were wrong.
Buy stock in “Cattle Cars”.
They are coming soon.
I think books like that have been written. Don’t remember where I first saw it, but there’s a thesis that after the Salem witch trials, which contemporaries viewed as a ridiculous hysteria, Puritanism took a severe PR hit. In order to reclaim the moral high ground, later Puritans and/or their inheritors glommed on to anti-slavery as the next crusade. As they spread westward, they took the new errand of anti-slavery with them, setting up the civil war years later.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.