Photo Courtesy of Unsplash.
Alert Level Green couldn’t last forever. After President Katherine Bergeron’s Oct. 18 announcement that the College would enter a modified Alert Level 1-Green, students rejoiced at the opportunity to eat indoors at socially distanced tables in Cro and Harris, visit friends in other dorms, and study in coffee shops again. Maybe they rejoiced too soon.. Two weeks later, on Nov. 1, Conn students received another email, this time from Dean of Student Life Victor Arcelus. The email read:
“Beginning 1:00 p.m. today (Sunday), we are shifting from Modified Alert Level 1-Green to Modified Alert Level 2-Yellow, out of an abundance of caution, and to limit further spread of COVID-19. The new alert level signifies that the number of people testing positive is still manageable, that effective contact tracing remains possible, and that we have confidence in the ability to contain, isolate and remediate small clusters.”
The email read. In those two weeks, Covid-19 cases at Conn had risen, and there were sixteen new student cases in isolation, with others in quarantine. Seating in the dining halls was closed, coffee shops went back to take-out only, and dorms became resident-only again. Since Dean Arcelus’ email, Conn’s cases have only gone up. From Oct. 26 to Nov. 8, there have been 35 new cases among students and 5 new cases among employees.
Many students wondered how wise it was to go into Alert Level Green at a time when coronavirus cases in the surrounding areas of New London County were on the rise. On Oct. 9, less than two weeks before President Bergeron’s announcement, Dean Arcelus sent out an email informing students that the Connecticut Department of Public Health had issued a Covid-19 alert for New London because of steadily rising cases. Arcelus also asked students to limit their off-campus trips into New London unless it was for essential purposes. As of Nov. 17, New London County is at risk for an outbreak and is averaging 64 new cases each day. We can expect that Thanksgiving gatherings will increase this number. It is imperative that Connecticut College students do not contribute to this outbreak or bring coronavirus back from the community onto Conn’s campus.
“I decided not to go to my in-person classes and to do them remotely,” said Julia Hartheimer ‘22 when asked if she was nervous about the sudden rise in Covid-19 cases on campus and in New London. Some professors teaching in-person also chose to move learning online for the week due to the surge of cases although some chose to continue in-person classes. Kayla O’Malley ‘22 still had classes in person and chose to go. “I did feel nervous when I heard that there was a spike in cases. Especially when I had to attend in-person classes. I definitely felt more at risk than I had previously in the semester. I didn’t necessarily take extra precautions but I did make sure to sanitize more than I usually do. I also started to sanitize my phone and laptop more often. I don’t think people were being safe. It seems like people got comfortable because we didn’t have any positive cases on campus in a while and they started to follow the guidelines more loosely than they did before. It was obvious that the number of parties on campus increased when we moved into Alert Level Green.”
Cases have finally begun to go down again as we enter our last few days on campus this semester, but our community must work together to keep them down when students return in February. Wear your mask, don’t throw a party in your tiny single, and wash your hands. Only through a united front can we keep Conn safe for the next semester.•
