Opinion: FSU Fix It: A Quarantine Commentary
posted by Victoria Walker | September 25, 2020 | In News, Opinion“We are halfway through the semester. You should know this by now,” the famous words of just about every teacher and professor we will ever meet in our lives, but can I throw this back at Fayetteville State University for a moment?
COVID-19 has come with difficulties for all of us this year but, by now, we are halfway into the semester of fighting this pandemic, and our policies and procedures should be running smoothly.
I recently had to undergo quarantine within a suite with five other students, and it really showed us that FSU really needs to step up their game when it comes to this. For example, delayed email notifications should never be an issue when dealing with this virus. FSU was late with what we were told would be an “immediate” notification that the person within our dorm was positive and that we were exposed – it was three days into our quarantine. I know, crazy, right?
To make matters worse, we found out through housekeeping that they were notified that we were on “quarantine” a week before an email was ever sent out to us, which explains the week prior to this our struggles of getting soap, toilet paper, and paper towels in our dorm. Even in quarantine, this was impossible, and we found ourselves having to send out several emails and make a ton of calls just for toilet paper.
It was not just a problem for us.
If we had not been collecting our food from outside at that time, then housekeeping would have come inside our suite and, since none of us had been tested yet, then they would have then been put at risk, too.
Another procedure that really needs to be worked on would be how we handle testing during this time. We had to leave quarantine to go get tested. While quarantined, you are truly unaware if you are negative or positive. Mask or not, because I wear my mask regardless, you should not ask five quarantined individuals to leave a space and walk across campus. We are on campus, there should be safer ways to get tested without the possibility of touching doors and potentially exposing people because we need to be tested for COVID-19.
The biggest issue and problem FSU should fix is how you handle things when individuals are in quarantine. There was a total of five of us quarantined in our suite, but, for the first three days, only three out of five meals were delivered to us. Then, throughout the entire quarantine, we had days where we got three meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner) or days where we got just dinner. You ask us to fill out a form for food, but you don’t even bring what is selected on the form. Then you completely ignore some people’s diets. I am a vegetarian, and there were no vegetarian options. I even told two individuals that I was vegetarian, and it wasn’t handled until the last day of quarantine. If we were not the types of suite-mates to share what we have, then most of us would have gone that entire time not eating.
This is not the only time I have heard about this. I was planning to write on this topic way before I, myself, had ended up in quarantine. We are in quarantine, and you tell us to stay in a room with no warning, so please do not act like it is a problem when we contact you several times on an issue where you say you’re going to get it handled but you never do. Then when the students take it to a person above you, then it is suddenly a problem because you didn’t do it.
Please remember that ladies also have essential products that males do not need. FSU should have been more than prepared to help us get those products since they decided to put us in a quarantine suddenly and without notice. The students you put in quarantine and isolation are still human, and they are more than deserving of the help because being in a room 14 days straight is stressful enough.
We are all adults here so there should not be a reason in which these problems and situations are still showing up halfway through a semester. I was completely with FSU at the beginning of the semester, and I understood trial and error, but now we are far enough into the semester where we are no longer in a trial period. We are at a time where these policies and procedures should be handled and worked through.
So, I ask you, Fayetteville State University, what are you going to do now? Are you going to step up and take care of your business or are you going to continue to lack the very best for, not only your healthy students, but your sick and quarantined as well?
Editor’s Note: The Voice reached out to FSU officials for comment on this op-ed, and were informed that the university does not comment on op-eds.
Graphic courtesy of Prachatai.
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