Stay­ing Safe on Cam­pus in a Pan­demic

MISHAWAKA--Most stu­dents likely never ex­pected part of their col­lege ex­pe­ri­ence to oc­cur dur­ing a pan­demic, but Bethel has in­stalled sev­eral pro­to­cols to en­sure cam­pus life is as safe as pos­si­ble. 

“Any stu­dent who is not feel­ing well should ei­ther con­tact one of the nurses we have on cam­pus or their health care provider who would give some kind of ad­vice, whether that is to go for test­ing or quar­an­tine in their room to rest and re­fuel for a time,” Julie Beam, dean of stu­dents, said. “We’re find­ing that the sit­u­a­tion re­ally de­pends on each per­son’s cir­cum­stances. Our next steps with the stu­dent de­pend on their med­ical ad­vice.” 

Stu­dent Life has re­served rooms in the res­i­den­tial halls specif­i­cally for quar­an­tine or iso­la­tion, in ad­di­tion to four re­served homes off-cam­pus. 

“One of the nu­ances is, de­pend­ing on what med­ical ad­vice is given, it may be that a stu­dent could be­gin a quar­an­tine in their own room,” Beam said. 

  Some stu­dents have al­ready ex­pe­ri­enced quar­an­tine out of cau­tion, in­clud­ing an ac­quain­tance of the ed­i­tor who asked to re­main anony­mous. Af­ter be­ing told she had been in the same group with an­other stu­dent ex­pe­ri­enc­ing symp­toms, the stu­dent was asked to quar­an­tine. 

“It would have been nice to have been asked if I was in con­tact with her,” the stu­dent said.  Al­though the two stu­dents were in the same group to­gether, the stu­dent said she had never been ex­posed to her team­mate within six feet for more than 15 min­utes.  The stu­dent was quar­an­tined in her dorm, but her room­mates could go in and out.   

“My biggest is­sue was mis­com­mu­ni­ca­tion and in­con­sis­tency with pro­to­col,” the stu­dent said.  “As far as what I was hear­ing what the pro­to­col sit­u­a­tion was, it was­n’t con­sis­tent with quar­an­ti­ning me sep­a­rately.”  

Ad­di­tion­ally, the stu­dent said she had to go through a chain of peo­ple for in­for­ma­tion on how long she would be kept in quar­an­tine. Af­ter her team­mate tested neg­a­tive, the stu­dent was al­lowed to re­turn to in-per­son cam­pus par­tic­i­pa­tion. 

Con­tact re­view is spe­cific to the Bethel com­mu­nity.  The stu­dent ex­pe­ri­enc­ing symp­toms or ex­posed to a per­son with symp­toms goes through a process of list­ing ar­eas and peo­ple they have been in con­tact with the last 48 hours.  From there, the COVID re­sponse team con­tacts the stu­dents who have pos­si­bly been ex­posed and asks them to quar­an­tine.  It is up to the stu­dent to con­tact any­one they have been in con­tact with out­side of cam­pus. 

“The word ‘quar­an­ti­ne’ is re­fer­ring to a stu­dent who may pos­si­bly have been ex­posed to some­one with COVID and the word ‘iso­la­tion’ refers to an in­di­vid­ual who may have it,” said Beam.   

Stu­dents who have been pos­si­bly ex­posed within six feet for longer than 15 min­utes are asked to quar­an­tine for a max­i­mum of 14 days. A cam­pus nurse or Stu­dent Life staff mem­ber will fol­low up pe­ri­od­i­cally to re­view stu­den­t’s self-ob­ser­va­tions. 

“If the per­son you were ex­posed to tests neg­a­tive, then you would be re­leased,” Shawn Holt­gren, vice pres­i­dent for stu­dent de­vel­op­ment, said. 

Stu­dents who have symp­toms that are con­sis­tent with COVID-19 or who have re­cently tested pos­i­tive are to self-iso­late; Stu­dent Life is pre­pared to pro­vide a lo­ca­tion if the stu­dent is un­able to re­turn home.  Iso­la­tion should last for ten days since the symp­toms first ap­peared, or if asymp­to­matic, 10 days af­ter the stu­dent re­ceived the pos­i­tive test re­sult.  These guide­lines are not set in stone, how­ever, as each sit­u­a­tion is unique. 

“Test­ing is great thing, but that test­ing is not 100%, so there’s a per­cent­age of false neg­a­tives,” Beam said.  

So far, no mem­bers of the Bethel com­mu­nity have tested pos­i­tive.