In mid-September, Mackenzie Wiley got a call from Dr. Tom McLarney, Wesleyan’s Medical Director and on-campus COVID-19 specialist, informing her that one part of her two-prong PCR test had come back positive. The situation was familiar; after all, last year, one of her housemates had tested positive and Mackenzie had to quarantine for fourteen days.

This year, when she had the lowest possible level of antigens and was asked to isolate out of an abundance of caution, she assumed that after months of the school refining COVID-19 protocols, the quarantine process would be easier. Unfortunately, she was wrong. Last year, when Mackenzie was asked to isolate, all of her classes were online and the worst part of quarantine was missing campus life. This year, though she only isolated for three days, she missed many of her classes, which were now meeting in person. These classes were not recorded, which left Mackenzie competing for her professors’ attention during office hours. For one course, she even had to take a quiz on material that was covered while she was absent, and performed worse on the quiz because of it. 

These inconveniences may seem unavoidable in our efforts to “get back to normal,” but the implications for the spread of disease are far more insidious. Consider the “Wesplague,” a campus nickname for the rhinovirus that is passed around the student body every fall. Last year, this previously annual illness was conspicuously absent, likely because everyone was wearing masks and studying remotely. With school returning to a semblance of normal, the so-called Wesplague has reemerged with a vengeance. Through most of September and October, classes sounded like echo chambers of coughing, sniffling, and sneezing—everyone was sick, but no one was staying home. After more than eighteen months of fighting a worldwide pandemic, one would think everyone would have effective strategies for avoiding transmission of a respiratory disease—but this did not seem to be the case in Wesleyan’s classrooms.

The reason for this, in our opinion, lies in Mackenzie’s recent experience with quarantine. Even though she was only potentially infected with COVID-19, she struggled to keep up with classes because professors no longer took advantage of the remote learning resources now at their disposal. Rather than recording lectures, having a hybrid option, or working out alternative testing schedules, professors treated a potential COVID-19 infection the same way that illness was treated before the pandemic—by placing the burden of keeping up on the sick student. Not only is this unfair to COVID-19 infected students, but it also promotes a blasé attitude toward infection that is allowing the milder illness to spread so effectively. How can we be expected to honor the “Socialism of the Microbe,” the idea that community care is the key to communal public health, if we are not given space to admit that we are sick?

College campuses, and indeed, schools in general, have a unique position and, arguably, a unique responsibility when it comes to preventing the spread of disease. Students and teachers interact with larger groups of people on a more frequent basis than much of the rest of society. A student in a typical school can expect to share air with hundreds of others, whereas a regular citizen in a workplace will probably top out around a couple of dozen. Schools provide ample opportunity for germs to explode into the population and should, therefore, take extra precautions to avoid facilitating the spread of any disease, even infections that initially seem harmless.

Not only is this approach practical, but it also has the potential to ingrain good habits surrounding hygiene and disease from an early age, promoting the spread of knowledge through the population. Much of the education and outreach that will help prevent future pandemics are already in place: masking, comprehensive vaccination, and information about disease transmission are far more widespread than they were two years ago. The next step is to take illness seriously and prioritize physical health over attending class at all costs. Now that we have the virtual tools to allow students to take the appropriate action to prevent the spread of disease without sacrificing their education, those professors and administrators in charge of classes need to give students the option to stay home. The result will be a healthier student body, one that is better equipped to fight illness in their own bodies and keep the rest of their community safe.

Francesca Myhrvold is a member of the class of 2022 and can be reached at fmyhrvold@wesleyan.edu.

Mackenzie Wiley is a member of the class of 2022 and can be reached at mwiley@wesleyan.edu.