When I transferred to Brandeis in the fall of 2019 I was ready to open a new chapter in my life, meet new friends, audition for theater on campus and join an acapella group. What I didn’t expect was for a global pandemic to start in my second semester on campus. Two years of a global pandemic is not exactly the college experience that any of us were expecting, but here we are. Everyone—including myself—wants this pandemic to be over, but it’s not. With the coronavirus infections steadily declining, it makes sense for us to want things to start going back to normal. However, every time the world has started to open up again, a new wave of the pandemic starts and Brandeis isn’t immune from that.
Brandeis’ recent policy change is going to put students at risk of contracting COVID-19. Relaxing masking and testing policies, as well as not updating the COVID-19 dashboard everyday, and making all of these changes all at once is extremely irresponsible. In my opinion, these changes should have been made gradually, starting with reduced testing and then, after a while, reduced masking. Wearing a mask and keeping our hands clean is the best way to stay healthy in the midst of this pandemic, so why do we stop doing that every single time things start to look up? Yes, having to submit COVID-19 tests and wearing masks is inconvenient and uncomfortable, but we do have a greater campus community to look out for. We have disabled community members, immunocompromised and immunosuppressed community members, community members who live with or care for people who are at a high risk for COVID-19 and this pandemic is still very serious and scary for those people despite the number of cases decreasing. On a personal note, I have a chronic condition that hasn’t been diagnosed yet and I don’t know how my body will react to the COVID-19 virus.
Personally, I was very disappointed when it was announced that the COVID-19 dashboard would not be updated everyday starting March 7. I had been checking the dashboard almost everyday this entire school year so that I would have up to date information as to how Brandeis was doing in terms of the pandemic. Having up-to-date information about the pandemic on campus is very important to me and others, especially those of us who have to worry about our health. As a disabled student on campus, it is extremely scary to not be able to keep up to date daily about the pandemic and I feel like everyone I know is becoming a close contact. A recent email from Brandeis University Student Affairs stated that there is an “unusually high number of community members who have recently been identified as close contacts who are now required to quarantine.” Only updating us on the statistics twice a week keeps the campus in the dark for days about what is happening. I think the university should rethink recent changes to the masking and testing policy since the COVID-19 pandemic is still affecting the on-campus community.
