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After almost a week in isolation with virtually no human contact or trips outside, Caroline Noone was ready to leave.

Noone, a Syracuse University student who tested positive for the coronavirus, had just received confirmation from government authorities that she had completed her mandatory isolation period and was free to go. Ecstatic to finally move out of SU’s isolation facilities at Skyhall 1, she packed her things and went to the lobby, where she had arranged for a friend to meet her.

But when Noone tried to step outside Skyhall 1 for the first time in days, a security guard stopped her. SU had not yet confirmed that Noone could leave, the guard said.

“At that point, I was losing it inside,” said Noone, a junior environmental interior design major. “I was like, ‘I need to get out of here.’”

After getting in touch with university officials, Noone confirmed she was able to leave the facility. But she’s just one of several students who, having contracted COVID-19 while at SU, went through what they described as a stressful isolation period made worse by lagging communication between SU and government officials.

Noone’s case was one of several that emerged within her extended friend group early in the fall semester. After some of Noone’s roommates began to test positive for their virus, their friends and their friends’ roommates followed, illustrating how the virus can spread in the neighborhood surrounding the university.

“We were the epicenter of the virus on this campus for two weeks,” said Melanie Albanese, a senior marketing major and one of the first of Noone’s roommates to test positive.

Despite seeing an uptick in cases since Labor Day, SU has largely maintained a low number of COVID-19 cases on campus since classes began Aug. 24. As of Friday, the university had confirmed 30 active cases among students in central New York.

Nearly all of the students who spoke to The Daily Orange believe the virus spread to their friend group from a student who traveled to SU from Puerto Rico for the start of classes. The student didn’t complete the state’s two-week quarantine requirement before socializing with other students, they said.

Albanese was one of the first of her roommates to show symptoms. She believes she caught the virus from the newly-arrived student before possibly passing it to some of her roommates, including Noone and Parizeh Malik, a senior international relations and economics major.

Several students said the virus may have spread further at a birthday gathering for a friend, SU student Joe Sherwood, which some members of Noone’s household attended. Sherwood believes he — and possibly others — contracted the virus at the gathering, leading those in attendance to expose their friends and roommates.

“From there, everybody was popping up as being positive,” said Sherwood, a fourth-year student studying industrial and interaction design.

One of Sherwood’s roommates, Matteo Broccolo, caught the virus after the gathering. Christian Andino Borrero and Emmeline Perkins, who both said they were at the gathering, contracted it as well.

None of the students in the group faced serious or life-threatening complications from the virus. Their symptoms included congestion, headaches and the loss of taste and smell.

Weeks after first showing symptoms, Sherwood said he still can’t taste or smell anything.

“The loss of taste and smell has been the one that doesn’t hurt the most, but it’s the one that hurts me the most,” he said.

After Albanese and other members of the group began showing symptoms, several of the students notified the university that they had been exposed to the virus. In response, university officials told them to quarantine but did not immediately test them.

SU told the students that they should quarantine and self-monitor for symptoms before receiving tests, as the virus may have to be in their system for several days before showing up in a test, the students said.

Some students, like Noone, did not receive a positive result until their second or third round of testing. Others, like Perkins, received positive tests at local testing sites. The students said they waited two or three days to receive test results from the university.

Malik and other students wished they had known beforehand that they may have to wait several days after their initial exposure to the virus for testing to work. Malik felt the university’s directions for students who had been exposed to the virus was unclear, which bothered her.

“I’ve seen the thousands of emails from the school, but there’s no clear policy for students and, like, guidelines to tell you what to do once you’re exposed,” Malik said. “I’ve just been frustrated by the lack of clarity there.”

Malik found the testing and quarantine process at SU so stressful that she decided to remove herself from the situation entirely. Instead of quarantining in her off-campus residence, she returned to her home state of New Jersey, where she tested positive for the virus and began isolating in her house.

Even though she is out of state, SU personnel have called Malik daily to check on her symptoms, which include headaches, fatigue and a loss of her sense of smell.

“I was relieved to come home,” Malik said. “We were all on edge and concerned. Those of us who were still quarantined, we would wear masks in front of each other. We just couldn’t relax in our own personal space.”

While all the students who tested positive for the virus wound up in isolation housing, their route there varied greatly. The university relocated Albanese and Borrero to quarantine housing in the Sheraton before moving them to isolation, while others went to the isolation facility directly.

The university allowed Sherwood and Broccolo to remain in their off-campus housing, while their other roommate, who did not test positive, relocated to the Sheraton to quarantine.

From the beginning of their isolation or quarantine periods, students described miscommunication between university officials at SU and between SU officials and county and state authorities.

When the county health department called Borrero to inform him of his positive test, he said they had both his birth date and address wrong, a mistake they attributed to a data entry error. After Borrero confirmed his positive result, he did not immediately realize the university was relocating him to a Skyhall building — at least not until a food services worker called him to ask what food he would like while in isolation.

Whenever Sherwood spoke with SU personnel, they seemed to lack information about his case — even though he had already provided it — and they couldn’t provide answers to his questions until hours or days later, he said.

“It was almost like having a completely new conversation every time they called, and they never kept track of any of the information we were saying,” Sherwood said. “Nobody has answers to anything.”

The students also said they had to field calls from state, county and university contact tracers daily, repeating the same information to each caller.

The most frustrating part of isolation was the miscommunication between university and government officials over when the isolation period ended, students said. State and local health guidelines dictate that individuals can leave isolation 10 days after showing symptoms, as they are no longer considered contagious.

But multiple students, including Noone, Perkins, Sherwood and Borrero, said the university could take several hours to confirm the isolation period had ended before they were allowed to leave, even after government authorities sent them clearance.

Albanese, like Noone, found herself waiting in the Skyhall 1 lobby for the university to release her, even after government officials had notified her that she had completed the 10-day isolation. She sat on the lobby floor for over an hour as the university confirmed she was allowed to leave, she said.

“I was like, what the f*ck is wrong with you people?” Albanese said. “The medical transport was literally waiting outside for an hour.”

Several of the students said the quarantine and isolation periods took a toll on their mental health. Some worried about who else they may have exposed to the virus or felt guilty over extending their roommates’ quarantine by testing positive.

The university delivered food and helped fulfill students’ academic and personal needs while they were in isolation.

Albanese and Noone both said the conditions in isolation didn’t ease their anxiety. Focusing on classes was difficult for Noone, and her bed was uncomfortable. The isolation period was also intensely quiet, Perkins and Noone said, and they saw few, if any, other people during their stay.

“(The dorm) has no decorations, it has dorm lighting — you know how that is, it’s depressing — you can see outdoors, but you can’t go,” Albanese said. “It sucks so bad, and (SU personnel) just talk to you like you don’t even matter.”

Overall, students said the university did its best to keep them comfortable during their isolation but fell short on many occasions. Despite keeping cases relatively low, SU’s handling of students who are exposed to the virus is far from perfect, they said.

The lagging communication between SU, state and local officials also adds uncertainty to infected students’ already nerve-wracking situation, the students said. On top of grappling with a deadly virus, students must also figure out how to navigate unclear protocols without always knowing who they can turn to for answers.

“It becomes stressful when your life is pretty much stipped away from you,” Sherwood said. “It’s a lot, mentally, to handle.”

Published on September 20, 2020 at 10:44 pm

Contact Chris: cjhippen@syr.edu