WEDNESDAY, JAN. 20, 2021 VOLUME 95 ■ ISSUE 15
LA VIDA
SPORTS
Student vloggers share experiences.
Lady Raiders look to continue success against Kansas.
SGA President welcomes students back.
OPINIONS
ONLINE
PG 3
PG 5
PG 4
Vote on our poll on Twitter @Dailytoreador.
ONLINE
INDEX LA VIDA SPORTS OPINIONS CROSSWORD CLASSIFIEDS SUDOKU
3 5 4 5 5 3
CAMPUS
Schovanec addresses spring semester plans By CHASE SEABOLT Editor-in-Chief
Texas Tech President Lawrence Schovanec provided insight on how he felt the fall semester went and plans for the centennial celebration at Tech. With a sharp spike in positive COVID-19 cases on campus last fall after move-in dates, Schovanec said. Tech has to be prepared for an increase. “Certainly when you look at what’s happening in our state ,and across the country right now,” “we have to expect that those numbers are going to go back up,” Schovanec said. With the class schedule being similar to the fall semester; 40 percent face to face, 30 percent hybrid and 30 percent purely online. He said, they feel as if the inclass experience provided a safe environment. Tech plans to begin ramping up communication with the TTU Commitment program. “A lot of it is the same practices and protocols we had in the fall,” he said, “but we cannot relax even in spite of the fact that the vaccine
is out there.” On Jan. 14, Texas Department of Emergency Management (TDEM) opened their free walk-up testing sites all over the state. Schovanec encourages everyone to obtain a negative test result before returning to class. The Tech community still needs to do what they have been doing, he said. TTU Commitment will just be a way to remind everyone about wearing masks, social distancing and practicing good personal hygiene. “I would say we have a sense of what the numbers could be like,” Schovanec said. “I believe the most cases we had in a week were 400, but in two consecutive weeks, we may have had as many as 600.” In the fall semester, Tech set aside about 400 rooms for students to isolate if they were living on campus, he said. At one point they were concerned that they did not have enough rooms, at some points getting up to 300 people in the rooms. “I believe now that we have a better perspective of just what sort
of capacity we need in order to accommodate that spike,” Schovanec said, “and our numbers provided a margin of safety in the fall.” Going into the fall semester, he said, they were estimating what they needed as far as isolation rooms and facilities. After the first week they began to look for more facilities thinking that there would be more than 400 cases a week and would not be able to accommodate them. Luckily, Schovanec said, that never materialized. “I think from that we have learned that if there is a spike, it might occur in a matter of two to three weeks as it did in the fall,” Schovanec said. “But, I do think the situation is different now. If you look at the end of the semester when there was a spike statewide and nationwide, there was an increase. But nothing as dramatic as the first two to three weeks of the semester.” Tech is prepared for whatever situation presents itself, Schovanec said.
SEE SPRING, PG. 2
FILE PHOTO/The Daily Toreador
TTU President Lawrence Schovanec answers questions regarding COVID-19 and student safety during a news briefing on Aug. 24 in the courtyard of the administration building. He plans to have more face-to-face classes in fall
COVID-19
Tech HSC doctors discuss COVID-19 vaccine By HANNAH ISOM News Editor
As COVID-19 vaccine clinics race to vaccinate as many individuals as possible, many may be wondering what potential side effects there are and when to expect to see the impact of the vaccine on case numbers. Dr. Steven Berk, Executive Vice President of clinical affairs and doctor of internal medicine and infectious disease at the Texas Tech Health Sciences Center, said almost all side effects will be considered non-severe. Non-severe meaning aches and pains that should go away. Long-term side effects are what people are worried about, Berk said, and there is no evidence to suggest long-term side effects. However, there have been some allergic reactions, though Berk said individuals with even the worst allergic reactions, some resulting in an epinephrin shot, were OK. The long-term effects from COVID-19 are what people should be concerned with, Berk said. Some of these effects include mental fogginess, skin problems and multiinflammatory syndrome in children.
CHASE SEABOLT/The Daily Toreador
Katherine Wells, director of public health for the City of Lubbock, holds a vial of the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine. The City of Lubbock has vaccinated over 10,000 people. “If we’re worried about longterm effect.” “We really should be more worried about long-term effects of the virus itself than of the vaccine,” Berk said. Another concern some individ-
uals may have is contracting the virus after receiving the vaccine, and while Berk said this is rare, it is not impossible. The vaccine does not produce many antibodies until five or six
days after injection, Berk said. People may be brewing the virus at the time they get the vaccine or catch it right after getting the vaccine. Again, Berk said this is very
uncommon, but possible. The second dose of the vaccine is a booster, Berk said. “It’s needed to make sure the antibody levels stay for a long enough time,” Berk said. The vaccine appears to be 95 percent effective, Berk said, and seems to be working on variant strains of the virus as well, based on studies done. To break the COVID-19 pandemic, most would say that takes herd immunity, Berk said. This means 70 percent of the population would have to have antibodies, either natural ones or those from the vaccine. Right now, it appears that only 60 percent of the Lubbock population wants to get vaccinated, Berk said. However, Berk said if individuals over 65 and those with underlying health conditions get vaccinated, the ICU’s could begin to empty and the number of deaths could drop, decreasing the severity of the pandemic. The City of Lubbock Health Department is hoping to give 5,000 vaccines per week, Berk said.
SEE VACCINE, PG. 3
MEN’S BASKETBALL
Texas Tech men’s basketball team suffers two postponements By RYAN MAINVILLE Editorial Assistant
On Monday afternoon, the Big 12 Conference announced that the Texas Tech men’s basketball game against TCU in Fort Worth on Wednesday, Jan. 20 would be postponed. The conference cited “interruption guidelines” as the reasoning behind the postponement, according to their release. Both teams will work with the conference for the game to be rescheduled at some point later in the season, according to the release. It was also announced that TCU’s game against the Texas
Longhorns on Jan. 23 would be postponed as well. Shortly after the conference announced the postponement, TCU head coach Jamie Dixon announced on his Twitter page that he had tested positive for COVID-19 during team-wide testing. The Red Raiders would suffer another schedule change on Tuesday afternoon when their game against Iowa State was postponed, according to a Big 12 release. The Cyclones paused all team activities on Jan. 15 due to the program’s COVID-19 protocols, according to an Iowa State Athletics release.
The Cyclones have now had four straight games postponed. The last game they played was against Tech in Ames on Jan. 9. The back-to-back postponements come after a few months of uninterrupted games. Earlier in the season, the Big 12/Big East Battle between Tech and St. John’s was cancelled on Nov. 30 due to COVID-19 concerns from the Red Storm, according to a Tech Athletics release. The Red Raiders next scheduled game is against West Virginia on Jan. 25. That gives them nine days off before their next game against Baylor. @RyanMainvilleDT
FILE PHOTO/The Daily Toreador
Redshirt sophomore guard Kevin McCullar dunks the ball during the Texas Tech vs. Texas men’s basketball game on Feb. 29, 2020. The Red Raiders have had three games postponed due to COVID-19.