‘I feel very much in the dark’: SU sends students to OCC for COVID-19 isolation
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Syracuse University has been sending students to Onondaga Community College to isolate after testing positive for COVID-19.
SU has not communicated in a campus-wide email that it has been sending students to isolate at OCC. The university does not communicate the locations of isolation housing due to privacy reasons, said Sarah Scalese, senior associate vice president for university communications, in an email statement to The Daily Orange.
As of Sept. 21, 16 SU students have been sent to OCC to isolate since the beginning of the fall 2021 semester, Scalese said.
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OCC had a formal agreement with SU for the university to send students to OCC to isolate, said Roger Mirabito, executive director of communications at OCC, in an email to The D.O. He did not directly address a question asking about the nature or terms of this agreement.
There are no OCC students living in Shapero Hall, Mirabito said. The college kept the hall empty throughout the fall 2020, spring 2021 and fall 2021 semesters to use it “solely for quarantine purposes.”
Students sent to OCC told The D.O. that they did not fully understand they were being transported to a college four miles away from SU. All of the students The D.O. spoke to are fully vaccinated.
Students who were sent to OCC said they felt misled by this communication from the university and that they were not properly informed about the move.
Izzy Izaguirre, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences, said she took a COVID-19 saliva pool test. The next day, the test came back positive. She was later asked to take a rapid swab test, which also came back positive.
Izaguirre said she and other students received a phone call after the second test came back positive informing them they needed to pack some things and be ready outside their residence halls for a pickup time to move to Shapero Hall.
“(I was told) I was going to Shapero Hall. I was like, ‘maybe it’s another building on South Campus that I don’t know about,’” Izaguirre said. “I got on the transport van, and I really had no idea I was coming here until I got here.”
Before students were sent to OCC, SU sent them an isolation guide informing them on what to pack and what isolation protocols are in place while they isolate at Shapero Hall. Nowhere in the isolation guide does it state that Shapero Hall is at Onondaga Community College, though it does state Shapero Hall’s address, and on every reference to the college it just says “OCC.”
“It’s been confusing, because it seemed like we were placed here because there was no room on South Campus and Skyhall. But I don’t think the school has communicated that,” said Caroline Stevenson, a sophomore in the Newhouse School of Public Communications. “I don’t think the university was expecting this many people to test positive.”
SU assigns isolation housing to students based on available space at the time they receive a positive test result, Scalese said, and it is the students’ responsibility to communicate with their family members about the isolation location they have been assigned.
Students who are isolated at OCC are only allowed to leave their room to access the communal bathrooms or grab food from the common area on their floor, multiple students said.
No isolating student is allowed to leave their floor, students said. Deliveries that students order are brought up to their floor between certain hours of the day. There is no time for them to go outdoors.
Students isolated at OCC are released from isolation and brought back to SU 10 days after the first sign of showing symptoms for COVID-19, students said.
Julia Johnson-Milstein, a freshman in the College of Engineering and Computer Science, said not being able to go outdoors was hard for her. Johnson-Milstein played sports for most of her life and said she had been trying her best to be active in her room at OCC and get fresh air.
“I understand they’re trying to do this as safe as possible,” Johnson-Milstein said. “I hope as time goes on, they find a way to do that because there aren’t that many people here so far. There’s so much space outside, and it can’t be that hard to walk us down the stairs and let us stand outside for an hour.”
Students said that their professors have tried to accommodate them while they are in isolation. Stevenson said one professor pushed back an exam for her while in isolation, but she still feels anxious without being able to be in class on Zoom.
Izaguirre said most of her professors have not provided her with any way to watch large lectures through a livestream or a recording, so she could only follow the class through powerpoint slides and the textbooks. Only one of her professors provided her with a Zoom link to join the class.
“I feel very much in the dark,” Izaguirre said. “I wish there was that hybrid option that we had last year that was super helpful for anyone who was sick or in quarantine.”