The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/coronavirus/page/6/)
President Martha E. Pollack’s long-awaited Tuesday announcement welcomed Cornellians back to campus, but described a Cornell that faintly resembles the one students left in March. Many say they are still thrilled to return to Ithaca in September, while others were skeptical of the reopening message, wary of what social distancing will mean in an environment built for socializing.
Cornellians will come back to Ithaca for the fall 2020 semester, President Martha E. Pollack announced on Tuesday. Students will return home at Thanksgiving and finish the semester online, while the spring semester is scheduled to begin in February. Here’s Pollack’s email, annotated with background information and additional details:
Cornell will reopen campus for the fall semester, offering in-person and online instruction, President Martha E. Pollack announced Tuesday.
What does sand in the winter and not being able to find parking in front of your house have in common? They’re both indicators that you live in a beach town. Summer 2020 is undoubtedly one for the books. From lost internships to canceled vacations, everyone is feeling the effects of coronavirus in some way or another. These feelings are felt all the more deeply in a beach town.
Bleak. Miserable. Chaotic. These words best describe the current state of what has become the worst American economy in recent memory, according to three Cornell professors.
As we search for good news amid the COVID-19 pandemic, one common theme has been the improved air quality and positive environmental impacts of quarantine. Emissions in China alone temporarily dropped by a quarter, and New York City carbon dioxide emissions also decreased as it became a hotspot for the virus. However, these drops are fleeting, as they are merely a result of the worldwide shutdowns, travel restrictions, etc. Levels of CO2 will rise as we return to life as it was before the virus. Stalling economic activity in no way set the proper stage for long-term environmental improvement.
The reports — which “provide a clear sense of the considerations that will go into final decisions about whether … we are able to invite our students back to Ithaca,” Pollack wrote in a Monday afternoon email — offer the most comprehensive look yet at what college in the era of COVID-19 may entail.
No, it won’t. That’s an absolutely preposterous statement. There is no causation between when Collegetown Bagels will reopen in its new Sheldon Court location and you wearing a mask. However, if you are among the growing, vocal minority of Americans steadfastly refusing to wear a mask despite the Center of Disease Control’s recommendation to do so in public spaces, then may I recommend you pretend that this false causation is true? If the tangible reward of Zabs motivates you to wear a mask when you go out in public, then I am here to tell you that CTB will reopen sooner if you wear a mask.
It’s probably only the kind of thought that occurs when one is three months into quarantine with a kitten waking them up at 5:30 a.m., but sitting in my house watching Designated Survivor while my parents watched House of Cards downstairs made me wonder what exactly we were doing. The third episode of Season 2 of the Netflix show Designated Survivor is titled “Outbreak.” The premise? There’s a viral strain of a flu for which there is no vaccine and the disease is disproportionately killing people of color. As a subplot, the White House counsel is tasked with mediating a debate over whether or not to remove a statue of a Confederate general from outside a courthouse. Watching fictional American governments handle fictional epidemics and have fictional issues to distract from the very real pandemic and very real police and government scandals is definitely a strange (albeit privileged) form of escapism.
In 2012, Trayvon Martin, wearing a grey hoodie, went to the store and purchased an Arizona Watermelon Fruit Juice Cocktail and Skittles. On his way home he was killed by George Zimmerman, who would later be acquitted of all charges. When Martin was killed, I was 12 years old in the sixth grade. To honor his memory, my classmates and I wore hoodies and bought Arizona’s & Skittles from the corner store across the street before school started. Later that day we sat in our middle school lunchroom and discussed the case.