Op-ed: Warren Wilson College Could Do a Better Job of Staying COVID Safe
Eli Styles | October 18, 2023
The COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on the world for over three years now. Things have gotten better since the pandemic started, but society is still not “COVID free”.
As of Oct. 12, 2023, 6,961,014 people have died worldwide from COVID-19. 1,149,729 of these deaths occurred in the United States of America (USA). 34,494 of those deaths occurred in North Carolina (NC). As of July 23, 2023, 727 deaths by COVID-19 had occurred in Buncombe County, NC.
President Joe Biden declared the federal COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE) over on May 11, 2023. The PHE went into effect on Jan. 30, 2020, less than two months before President Donald Trump declared a national emergency on March 13, 2020.
For those trying to avoid the disease, the death toll may not seem like the most important information. They may instead want to know the statistics of people who have contracted COVID-19 in the area, but unfortunately, that is not information that I can provide accurately.
After the PHE was stated to be over, data collection on COVID-19 cases slowed to what eventually became a stop. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stopped requiring states to report cases to them. Instead, the CDC focuses on hospitalization rates, wastewater samples and deaths due to COVID-19.
The NC Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) has also stopped updating both case and death counts altogether. As a result of this, and other organizations ceasing to report cases, seemingly reputable resources will show the new case count as zero, when in reality COVID-19 cases are presumed to be on the rise.
This is exemplified in places like Warren Wilson College (WWC). Colleges all across the country are breeding grounds for disease. Large numbers of people gather in spaces without wearing masks, forgo washing or sanitizing their hands properly and go to class while sick. That may be the traditional college way, but clearly, it does nothing to keep people safe.
A multitude of WWC students have tested positive for COVID-19 since the beginning of the fall 2023 semester. The exact number has not been made public, but it was high enough for the COVID Response Team to send out an email advising students to start wearing masks around campus again. This is in stark opposition to fall 2020, at the height of the pandemic, when WWC had zero on-campus COVID-19 cases. At that time there were many more preventative measures put in place for the residential community.
While not all of those measures are still necessary, more care should be exercised in combating rising cases. Students are currently going to class unmasked even when they are obviously sick. There are a number of students who continue to mask any time they are indoors and exercise COVID safety to the nth degree, but they are in the minority.
We are all familiar with WWC culture. Students hardly shower in order to save water, skinny dip in the river and walk around campus without shoes. These things are not inherently harmful, but they do lead to a lack of hygienic practices. This means that disease transmission — including but certainly not limited to COVID-19 — can occur more frequently, especially with the lack of masking on campus.
89 percent of observational studies on the effectiveness of mask mandates in reducing the spread of COVID-19 found that masks were effective at reducing the disease’s transmission. The mask mandate on WWC’s campus was lifted on Sept. 6, 2022, making the school mask-optional for the first time since the pandemic’s beginning.
This lift came nearly eight months after Buncombe County lifted the county-wide mask mandate. WWC, as a private institution, has the ability to make its own rules when it comes to COVID-19 safety. The administration has the ability to regulate mask-wearing as they see fit, which raises the question of why they would lift the mandate with COVID-19 cases on the rise.
It is inevitable that COVID-19 cases will increase when a community is no longer forced to wear masks. However, it is also unreasonable to expect everyone to continue wearing masks forever. COVID fatigue is a real problem affecting many people, from hospital workers to everyday community members living with the fear of contracting the disease.
But it is not that difficult to wear a mask to class, or in line at Gladfelter. It is exceedingly simple to put a mask on when you are sick and coughing up a storm, especially if you are going to insist on being close to people in public spaces. People can do whatever they want in their own space, but it is irresponsible to put the health of others in the WWC community at risk in shared spaces.
I myself am not perfect. Sometimes I forget my mask in my room or hang around close friends without proper facial covering. I could do better. We all could. But perfection is not what I am asking for. All I want is for community members to exhibit more care for those working so hard to keep themselves and others safe.
Immunocompromised people are at a higher risk for contracting COVID-19 — and having more severe cases of it — and disabled people are more likely to be hospitalized due to the disease.
The WWC population contains many disabled students. It may not be obvious to the naked eye, as not all disabilities are visible, but disabled people exist. We should be doing our best to keep them safe, even if it means a little discomfort.
At WWC in particular, extra care should be taken to stop the spread of COVID-19 due to the lack of quarantine housing available. WWC stopped utilizing off-campus quarantine housing in the spring of 2022, and both the Shepard residence hall and the St. Clair Guest House have ceased to be used as quarantine space since the pipe-burst incident in Villages A and B left WWC with a housing shortage.
Students are now forced to find their own housing to quarantine in — which, for many students, is not an easy feat. Quarantining in a hotel, family member’s home or Airbnb puts community members at risk for contracting the virus, not to mention the fact that many students do not have the option of paying for a place to stay.
Instead, students have been quarantining in their dorm rooms, which means either exposing their roommates to COVID-19 for long periods of time or forcing them to find elsewhere to sleep.
As a result, students who have been exposed to COVID-19 but tested negative have ended up staying on friends’ floors or even in the common rooms of their residence halls. It works as a temporary fix, but this is not sustainable. Students should be given extra support when they or their roommates contract the disease — they should not have to resort to sleeping on the floor or inconveniencing others when every student is paying an arm and a leg for housing as it is.
Students deserve to feel safe and cared for on their college campuses in every way possible. But due to the rising number of COVID-19 cases and the lack of support from WWC, fear is creeping into the minds of many.
Most students cannot afford to contract COVID-19. Not when it means missing integral information in classes, getting painfully behind on work hours due to the lack of compensation from the Work Program and the possibility of long-term health complications that can impede people for what could potentially be the rest of their lives.
So how can we stop the spread?
First: wear a mask. I probably sound like a broken record at this point, but it is true. Wearing a mask can significantly help stop the spread of COVID-19 and other viral or respiratory infections such as the flu. Cloth, surgical or KN95 — whatever you have access to, wear it.
Second: get vaccinated. If you have not already received your COVID-19 vaccine, do so as soon as possible. The vaccine can help protect you from the disease as well as decrease the severity of symptoms if you do contract it. If you have already been vaccinated, be sure to get the most recent COVID booster to reinstate protection against the disease and its new variants. Find a place to get vaccinated here.
Third: test as often as you need. The first signs of COVID tend to be a fever or a sore throat, so if you experience either of those symptoms then take a test. Tests are available at Box of Baguettes and the Health Center. Resident Assistants (RAs) should also have tests available.
Finally: do not go to class if you are sick. Take the time you need to recover and keep yourself and community members safe.
Side note — all of the above are complicated by the fact that not everyone is equipped with the same resources. Some peoples’ lives are made much more difficult by having to mask and not being able to read lips, or by not having the transportation necessary to get their COVID-19 vaccine. These and more are problems that can be fixed through the use of community discussion, research and collaboration.
We should all be doing our best to keep ourselves and our peers safe. We are perfectly capable of doing better. So let us change the narrative on COVID-19, and work towards a cleaner, COVID-free future.