New Quarantine Concerns

By Matt Serrano Last updated Sep 7, 2023

Connor St. Peter ’24 opts to mask-up as COVID-19 cases at SLU increase. PHOTO CREDIT: MATT SERRANO ’26

Knowing what to do when you have COVID-19 is hard enough, but being quarantined poses its own challenges.

Last week, News Editor Quinn Meyer ’25 wrote about COVID-19 on campus in an article titled “SLU Welcomes Back an Uninvited Guest.” As the campus continues to grapple with the new wave of COVID-19 cases, students face new challenges with quarantine.

The current dominant strain is called EG.5 and does not pose a larger threat than the other variants of COVID-19. However, a new strain called BA.2.86. is thought to be more contagious and potentially more severe due to many mutations in its spike proteins. Cases of BA.2.86., however, remain low.

What to do when you get COVID-19 was sent to students in two emails in late August. Madyson McCarthy ’25 recently tested positive for COVID-19. She said, “I’m finding myself having to reach out to people to ask questions about things like the academic protocols instead of there being a designated resource with all of this information.” However, one of the emails sent out had non-functioning links for what students should do, and both have been buried by the regular emails that students receive.

“I really haven’t had the energy to go get food,” said McCarthy. Not only can it be difficult to get out of bed when you’re sick, but current SLU protocols have sick students going to the NorthStar Cafe or Dana Dining Hall to get their food. This made McCarthy 25′ uncomfortable, saying, “It just feels wrong being this sick and going into public spaces.”

Not being able to hang out in public spaces, like Dana Dining Hall, can be challenging, especially for new students. “I think that would be hard,” said Chloe O’Shea ’26, a transfer student, on other being quarantined. “I go to the dining hall and try to sit with new people. I would feel cut off.”

Some students are also using more dining dollars than usual while quarantined. “This is America, the land of the free, not the land of the fee,” said Adri Nothnagle ’24, who used up more dining dollars than she normally would while quarantined.

Students also must grapple with keeping up with their classes while they are quarantined with COVID-19. SLU expects students to email professors with details on how long they will be out.

Many professors switched back to an in-person teaching style as the campus returned to life largely without COVID-19. This can be tough since “a lot of professors have moved away from online teaching towards a more in-person method,” said Patrick Russell ’26.

This was an issue for Russell as “the number of assignments posted online to complete was low, and I later learned about a couple of assignments that had been assigned purely on paper.” With your grade on the line, not knowing if you’re doing all your assignments adds to the stress of being quarantined.