4 ms·

In my college system I’m responsible for cleaning my classroom after each use. If I forget to do this and a student gets sick then I’m personally liable. I’m

by syki 5y ago

In my college system I’m responsible for cleaning my classroom after each use. If I forget to do this and a student gets sick then I’m personally liable. I’m not paid enough to clean classrooms and teach and I’m not taking on the liability. Thus, I haven’t taught in the classroom for the last 2 years.

modernpink 5y ago
That is outrageous if true. An airborne virus is best treated with ventilation (i.e. opening windows). Surface transmission almost never happens [1]. The irony of course being that having a cleaner go in and out of rooms poses much greater risk of spread. [1] COVID-19 rarely spreads through surfaces. So why are we still deep cleaning? https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00251-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00251-4
- isoskeles 5y ago
  I went to the hospital two days ago. Plenty of COVID warnings were posted all over the place. One was a sign, last updated in February of 2020, that suggested you leave if you’ve been in contact with anyone who recently travelled to China, Korea, Iran, or Italy.
- treis 5y ago
  >That is outrageous if true It's not true.
  - syki 5y ago
    Consider that some colleges asked students to sign liability waivers to go back to the classroom. I don’t have the memorandum the chancellor sent to us at the beginning of the pandemic so I can’t prove that my statement is truthful but it does appear plausible given that some colleges asked students to sign waivers. I don’t know if the rules that my system put in place at the beginning of the pandemic are still in force. They may have put that rule in place just to make sure we all went online when this mess first started. I just know I’m not going back to the classroom until most of my colleagues do too. My college is still almost entirely online. EDIT: Chancellor’s memorandum was about cleaning protocols. The union advised us on liability issues and said that we could be liable for sicknesses if we fail to follow the protocol. My union membership includes a $1 million liability coverage for the classroom. They might have brought up this as a way of saying that our classroom insurance does not cover this possibility. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/08/03/students-asked-sign-liability-waivers-return-campus https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/08/03/students-aske...
    - treis 5y ago
      And yet we are 2 years into the pandemic with 0 successful lawsuits over personal liability for poor cleaning. There's just no realistic legal liability in the situation described.
      - syki 5y ago
        I didn’t claim there were any successful lawsuits. I just claimed that potential liability was one of the reasons I’m not teaching in the classroom.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
disambiguation 5y ago
that's too bad, surface transmission has been debunked for almost a year now. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/more/science-and-research/surface-transmission.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/more/science-and-r... > the relative risk of fomite transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is considered low compared with direct contact, droplet transmission, or airborne transmission
bart_spoon 5y ago
How on earth could they possibly identify your lack of cleaning with someone's infection? Seems like something that sounds scary but the real world implications are meaningless.

by syki 5y ago

modernpink 5y ago

That is outrageous if true. An airborne virus is best treated with ventilation (i.e. opening windows). Surface transmission almost never happens [1]. The irony of course being that having a cleaner go in and out of rooms poses much greater risk of spread. [1] COVID-19 rarely spreads through surfaces. So why are we still deep cleaning? https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00251-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00251-4

isoskeles 5y ago
I went to the hospital two days ago. Plenty of COVID warnings were posted all over the place. One was a sign, last updated in February of 2020, that suggested you leave if you’ve been in contact with anyone who recently travelled to China, Korea, Iran, or Italy.
treis 5y ago
>That is outrageous if true It's not true.
- syki 5y ago
  Consider that some colleges asked students to sign liability waivers to go back to the classroom. I don’t have the memorandum the chancellor sent to us at the beginning of the pandemic so I can’t prove that my statement is truthful but it does appear plausible given that some colleges asked students to sign waivers. I don’t know if the rules that my system put in place at the beginning of the pandemic are still in force. They may have put that rule in place just to make sure we all went online when this mess first started. I just know I’m not going back to the classroom until most of my colleagues do too. My college is still almost entirely online. EDIT: Chancellor’s memorandum was about cleaning protocols. The union advised us on liability issues and said that we could be liable for sicknesses if we fail to follow the protocol. My union membership includes a $1 million liability coverage for the classroom. They might have brought up this as a way of saying that our classroom insurance does not cover this possibility. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/08/03/students-asked-sign-liability-waivers-return-campus https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/08/03/students-aske...
  - treis 5y ago
    And yet we are 2 years into the pandemic with 0 successful lawsuits over personal liability for poor cleaning. There's just no realistic legal liability in the situation described.
    - syki 5y ago
      I didn’t claim there were any successful lawsuits. I just claimed that potential liability was one of the reasons I’m not teaching in the classroom.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

disambiguation 5y ago

that's too bad, surface transmission has been debunked for almost a year now. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/more/science-and-research/surface-transmission.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/more/science-and-r... > the relative risk of fomite transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is considered low compared with direct contact, droplet transmission, or airborne transmission

bart_spoon 5y ago

How on earth could they possibly identify your lack of cleaning with someone's infection? Seems like something that sounds scary but the real world implications are meaningless.