(03-10-2020 11:25 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(03-10-2020 10:56 AM)illiniowl Wrote:  

(03-10-2020 09:51 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(03-10-2020 09:22 AM)mrbig Wrote:  

(03-10-2020 08:28 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Bingo.

I'm not sure why cancelling a week of classes and some events should create hysteria. I don't feel hysterical. Do you feel hysterical? Does anyone posting feel hysterical? Keep calm, listen to the experts, don't be stupid. Easy enough.

And that's exactly what Rice is doing. They are following the recommended actions put out by the CDC for universities with confirmed COVID-19 cases.

The CDC doesn't give two flips about costs and benefits, and knock-on effects. Their goal, their charge, is containment. That's what they do. There are -- or at any rate, should be -- other considerations in addition to containment, especially of a variant of the common cold.

As a society it's ridiculous to cede decison making that affects every sphere to one agency concerned with one thing, but obviously that train has left the station and at this point, sad to say, Rice is guilty of nothing more than climbing aboard.

So who should Rice look to for expert opinions for the needed "Interim Guidance for Administrators of US Institutions of Higher Education Plan, Prepare and Respond to Coronavirus Disease 2019?"

Would it be better for Rice to completely ignore the guidance of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention?

Rice has to take action out of, as you say, an abundance of caution. But also out of a need to insulate the U. from liability. But Rice is not an individual. I think there is a lot of incipient hysteria at the individual level. I am more of a wait and see guy, rather than a move to my mountain cabin with six months of provisions guy.