JAMES MEAD
Managing Editor
Lauren Jenkins is a first-year student at SUNY Fredonia.
Coming to Fredonia from out-of-state, she was excited to get out of her house and experience college.
Yet four weeks later, she had to be quarantined.
She followed all of the safety guidelines — masks on campus, six feet apart where possible, washing her hands with soap and hot water — but on Tuesday, Sept. 8 at 12:08 p.m., she received a call from “NYS Contact Tracing.”
“I picked up the phone; I was absolutely terrified,” she said. “I was just sitting in my dorm with my roommate, and they were like, ‘Hi, is this Lauren?’ ‘Yes, it is.’
“’So, you came in contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19.’
“I had no idea where it could’ve come from, and they told me that they couldn’t tell me for confidentiality reasons,” she continued.
She would later learn that a coworker for her on-campus job in FSA had expressed concern to their manager that she was waiting for COVID-19 test results.
According to human resources, there is written documentation that said her coworker did not feel pressured into coming to work.
However, Jenkins did not know any of this when they were assigned a shift together.
Ultimately, her coworker called in sick to a later shift when she developed a cough.
She eventually tested positive, and Jenkins still knew none of this when she was told that she was exposed.
“They asked me if I was having symptoms,” she said, “I said no, because I wasn’t… but they also told me that I would be getting a call from a nurse, which would’ve been a nurse from the Student Health Center.
“I didn’t actually ever get that call. I had to call myself.”
She called around 4 p.m. — no response.
At about 4:30 p.m., she received a call back.
“They talked to me, and they told me I’d have to go into quarantine for a week, because I was already a week out from when I came into contact,” Jenkins said, “I came in contact on Sept. 1.
“They told me that I should be expecting an email from Residence Life about going into quarantine, and that email would guide me through the whole process.”
Because she didn’t have any symptoms, the Student Health Center would not test her on campus.
She asked about other options, and was told she could get tested if she had her own personal car to visit WellNow Urgent Care, which handles COVID-19 testing, but according to its website, “enforces in-car triage for all patients” as one of its safety measures to protect both its staff and other patients.
Because she did have her own car, she was able to get tested immediately following this phone call.
“I tried to do everything as quickly as possible…” she said, “I was under the impression that this would happen very fast.”
When Jenkins returned to campus, she was hoping for guidance from Residence Life — yet she still had not received an email.
“I’m pretty sure I placed two calls,” she said, “one to the Office of ResLife, and one to the campus Health Center, because I wanted to know why I didn’t have an email… but at that point, it was after 5 p.m., both of those offices were closed, so they didn’t pick up.
Because Jenkins lives with a roommate, there would be no way to properly quarantine herself while sharing the room.
And because she was expected to self-quarantine immediately, there would be no way for her to pick up food in the meantime.
“My roommate was kind enough to pick up something from Willy C’s for me,” she said, “so I could — you know — eat dinner.
“After I ate dinner and still no email, I was really concerned, so sometime around 7:45-ish, I went downstairs to talk to an R.A. that’s on duty… when I told him the situation I was in, he was really concerned… He had no idea what to do, so he said, ‘Email Adrian [the residence director where they live] — that’s about all you can do — and stay in your dorm. So I did: I emailed Adrian, my R.D., and waited…”
By 9 p.m., with no response and no email, she decided to call University Police.
“I called U.P. as a last resort at the recommendation of my mother,” she said. “My mom told me, ‘You’ve got to call U.P., because somebody’s got to figure out what to do.’ U.P. actually gave me the most information out of everybody.
“They said, ‘Well, they’re still getting a room ready for you. You’ll be moved in in the morning.’ I was still freaking out, because I thought I was going to be out within the hour at 4 p.m., and now here I am at 9 p.m. being told I’m not going to be moved out until the morning.”
When asked to clarify what else University Police told her, Jenkins said, “That was it. That was the most information I had gotten from anybody. I was just happy to have any information at that point.”
While she was relieved to know the status of her quarantine room, that didn’t answer how she could protect the health of her suite and her roommate.
She remembered that by pure luck, people had moved out of her suite, leaving an empty dorm.
Upon asking about it, she was permitted to use it as a makeshift self-quarantine room.
“It was wild. It was interesting, because you’re in an empty dorm, where it’s not like when you come here [a designated quarantine dorm], where they have things ready for you. It’s just an empty dorm,” she said.
“I didn’t think to pack sheets…so I slept on a [bare] mattress with a blanket. And a pillow,” she continued, “It wasn’t fun.”
The makeshift quarantine dorm couldn’t solve the problem of the suite’s shared bathroom, but it did allow her to minimize her roommate’s exposure in case she tested positive.
Jenkins received her first email from Residence Life at 9:38 a.m. on Wednesday, the next day.
In it, Kathy Forster, the Director of Residence Life, told her that they were working to identify a space to move her into as soon as possible, but, “With that being said, I want to be able to get you lunch today and possibly dinner in Hemingway delivered by our staff.”
“It was an implication that I possibly wouldn’t be moved out until later in the day,” Jenkins said. “One of the observations I made in that situation was, ‘The only help I’m really getting is from my friends and family, I’m not really getting any help from anyone who works for the campus.’ Granted, I was still glad that they were going to deliver me food, but then again, that’s a basic necessity.”
The email included additional information for what to expect in quarantining at Hendrix Hall as attached files.
It made clear to pay attention to any information regarding FSA food delivery.
Jenkins did not receive breakfast, because that is sent alongside dinners the day before, but received lunch at 1 p.m.
Responding to rumors about the quality of campus-delivered food, Lauren explained, “It definitely wasn’t a horror story, but it wasn’t the most fun experience either.”
According to FSA’s website, all food deliveries come from Cranston Marche, and appear to cost a similar amount as typical meals there.
The form for meal requests also mentions that, “If you don’t have a meal plan there is a foundation fund that will cover the cost,” although the specifics of that are unclear.
Jenkins received her next steps in the afternoon.
“During that class, I get a call around 3:30 [p.m.] from Kathy,” she said. “When she called me, she said, ‘Hey, can you move out around 4:00?’ I didn’t know exactly when class was going to end today, but I just wanted to get out of that room, so I said, ‘Sure.’ I already knew that I could leave class early if I needed to…so I just decided to go.
“I sent her [the professor] a private Zoom message letting her know that I would be leaving early, and during the Zoom call I was listening to everything, but I was also getting my stuff all packed up and ready to go.”
When it came time to leave, Jenkins packed her things and followed instructions from the phone-call — go to Hendrix Hall, and there would be someone waiting to let her in.
She struggled to move everything by herself from her room on the second floor over to the front entrance of Hendrix, but fortunately was living in a nearby residence hall to avoid a longer trip.
A wagon was provided in the main lobby of her residence hall for her to use, but in the confusion of the situation, she was not aware until the person waiting for her at Hendrix asked and went to retrieve it.
They entered Hendrix through a side-door.
“On my way there, I’d asked him a couple of questions,” she said, “I asked him, ‘Why did it take so long?’ and he said, ‘Well, they were clearing out a room for you.’ I was [thinking], ‘Okay, so it takes 28 hours to clear out a room?’ I’m assuming they were probably actually waiting for someone to recover or something — I don’t really know. They couldn’t tell me anything other than that.
“I also asked him, ‘Aren’t there like a hundred quarantine suites?’ and he said, ‘No, there’s 27.’”
While Jenkins estimates that there are about 100 rooms in Hendrix Hall, she explained that only one person is assigned per suite, drastically cutting the number that are available.
According to Michael Metzger, Vice President for Finance and Administration, the university is now additionally leasing 24 units from Park Place Apartments with the intent to house quarantine students.
How that may impact the quarantine/isolation process for students is not yet widely known.
Upon entering Hendrix Hall, she was given a key to her dorm and an informational packet.
Some of it, such as the FAQ section, was repeated from prior information to make it a centralized reference guide.
She had to take separate trips up the stairs to move her things, but wasn’t restricted on how many trips she could take while moving in.
“Obviously nobody could help me or touch my stuff, because I’m a biohazard right now, essentially,” she said.
When she did settle into her room, she noted everything that was left for her usage.
Those items included an oscillating fan, blankets, sheets, a pillow, eight towels, a thermometer, multiple sets of plastic silverware, two Styrofoam bowls, a bar of soap, Tylenol, cough and cold medicine, a small box of tissues, a large bottle of disinfectant, paper towels and some snacks.
“There [were] a lot of bottles of water…” she said, “there was a time when I had 11 in my dorm for a good time. Contrary to popular belief, they actually do give you a dorm-fridge, and a dorm-sized microwave. I’d heard a lot of horror stories saying they didn’t have them. Maybe they just didn’t have them ordered yet, and there were too many people coming in, so people weren’t getting clean rooms.
“I have the stuff that I need here, and I’m thankful for that… It’s definitely a lot better than I thought it would be, but the road to get here…”
She later continued, “That whole 28 hours where I was just entirely unsure of what was going to happen was probably some of the worst time of my life.
“It was scary, it was anxiety-inducing, it was frustrating… It’s a lot going on for one person to handle in a very short amount of time, and I don’t feel that I’m being treated with much sympathy. There is some… but I think that it’s almost a bare minimum at this point. They’re doing the bare minimum to not get sued.”
She also brought up a concern: “I come out [on Sept. 15]. What happens if I test negative, and then I come out and I get contact traced again, and I have to do this again?”
“I have little to no faith at all right now [in SUNY Fredonia’s handling of COVID-19],” she said, “especially because I’m directly facing it… I’m now seeing the reality of how they’re actually treating people and not just hearing outside stories. I know what it’s like to be going through their systems, and it’s not fun; it does not feel good in the slightest.”
Ultimately, Jenkins has tested negative for COVID-19, and she has now left quarantine.
In a follow-up email, she shared her final advice for students entering quarantine through the school: “Brace yourself, and prepare for the worst. While the school will provide you with most necessities, quarantine/isolation is an ever-changing situation.
“You never know what might change next.”