St. Lawrence University is still continuing to experience COVID-19 outbreaks on campus. Recently, SLU had a small increase in cases that influenced classes as well as the new mask update in classrooms. Students are finishing up their last few weeks of school and are unsure what the rest of the semester will look like with these changes.
Some students who have been in classes that were maskless now have to change back to wearing in classrooms. “I wasn’t adjusted to our new mask mandate on Monday so I was 10 minutes late looking for a mask in my room,” said Martine Lavelle ‘23. “I haven’t had to use one since the mandate was lifted so I wasn’t prepared,” she said.
This new change has been implemented in some classrooms, but not all professors are choosing to add masks back again. “It’s nice that in one of my classes it’s up to the students,” said Luisa Sanchez ‘23. “We lost our sense of choice during the pandemic but some of our classes are trying to give this back to us and treat us like adults,” she said. Many professors in various classrooms have given the decision up to the students, and the classrooms appear to be mixed in who wears a mask and who does not.
Many students who were exposed experienced a new kind of quarantine on campus. “One of my friends was placed in the Brush Alumni House because he had COVID-19, but it was shocking that he was out of quarantine in just 5 days,” said Hayden Terjeson ‘22. With the new 5-day quarantine implementation, many students only had to isolate for a few days maximum.
Students were only required to go into their quarantine based on the day they began to experience symptoms. Martine Lavelle explained that many of her friends were put into isolation, but not for very long. “One of my friends only needed to be quarantined for one night due to when her symptoms started,” she said. This was a common experience for many during this outbreak round.
Some students who were exposed were nervous to test because they didn’t want to miss out and quarantine during the last few weeks of classes. “Prior to spring break I got a take home test from security so that I did not have to disclose my results to the school out of fear of not being able to participate in the spring break,” said Anonymous. “As it was evident that more students were becoming sick towards the end of the semester I had even less of a desire to get a test since I didn’t want to miss out on the last few weeks of school,” they said.
Ultimately, SLU students are experiencing their last few weeks of the spring semester quite differently from one another. As of now, there have been no new updates for what is to come when returning in the Fall.