Last week, after a recent increase in cases linked to off-campus parties, the University of Colorado banned all public gatherings that include 18- to 22-year-olds after the Boulder County Health Department handed down new guidelines to help fight the spread of COVID in the area.
Matthew Parone, a senior at the school, told CBS Denver, “Everyone feels trapped.” He called the guidelines “absolutely crazy” because they target “college-age students, whether you go to college or not.”
As noted, the virus is known to be particularly dangerous for the elderly community, while college-aged individuals have little risk of serious infection.
The state’s health department reported that the new coronavirus cases in the county originated at off-campus group homes. The department said it “has determined the majority of COVID-19 transmission within Boulder County is due to social gatherings among persons aged between 18 and 22 years in the city of Boulder, during which many individuals failed to comply with public health face covering and social distancing orders.”
The order said the guidelines include all outdoor, indoor, on-campus, and off-campus locations. The guidelines went into effect on Thursday and will continue until noon on 8 October, when it will be reevaluated. In-person learning has also been suspended at the university for at least two weeks.
Phil DiStefano, the chancellor at the University of Colorado, told the students the school is going to focus on “virtual events that we can create for students, and any other support they may need while they are experiencing college life in such an altered way.”
The Denver Post reported the school has seen a surge of students withdrawing since the beginning of the school year. The report said about 570 students – double the number compared to last year – have withdrawn from the school.
Todd Saliman, the school’s chief financial officer, told the paper, “While the number of withdrawals are, thankfully, modest they’re still impactful and it means the campus is going to have to take actions to address the budget gaps. The campus has plans to do that but no one wants to implement those plans because they’re reductions.”
The CBS Denver report said some of the students at the school say they feel like they’ve been scammed. “Our hands are tied, and there’s nothing we can do, because we already paid for tuition,” Parone said.
Blame the Young
Last week, Governor Tony Evers – without a vote from the legislature who are fictitious representatives of We the People – issued an executive order mandating face masks and declared the reason cases were rising was that they were going up primarily among 18- to 24-year-olds.
TREND FORECAST: Once again, the same class of imbecilic school administrators who had kids hiding under their desks in case an atom bomb went off during the Cold War are making up useless rules to follow and regulations to obey during the COVID War.
As we had reported in February, many once-thriving college towns will become Rust Belt ghost towns if the strict COVID War rules persist.
Beyond having online classes only and restrictions that keep young people inside and not allowed to go out and party… more teens and twenty-somethings will be unwilling to go deep in debt to get a diploma that will be useless in finding them a decent paying job.
Inside Higher Ed estimates 78 percent of colleges said they would increase recruitment of transfer students to make up for high attrition numbers for the 2020-2021 academic year.
The economic impact to small and large businesses in college cities and towns will worsen as enrollments decrease and financial pressures from the “Greatest Depression” increase.
TREND FORECAST: Just as the Roaring ‘20s followed the Spanish Flu, we forecast a “Roaring 2020s” to follow COVID-19 as locked down youngsters hit the streets to let loose and party.
From going to speakeasys during the lockdowns and then out to clubs when they are again permitted, there will be numerous OnTrendpreneur® opportunities to create new night club scenes and sounds in the upcoming “Roaring 2020s.”
