Pictured above: North Rockefeller Hall on Mount Holyoke College’s Campus. Photo by Lily Reavis '21.
By Casey Roepke ’21
News Editor
After a number of students tested positive for COVID-19 in North Rockefeller Hall, the College placed one floor — and then the entire building — under temporary quarantine lockdown.
According to several students, one floor of North Rockefeller was put under modified quarantine last week. When further test results showed cases on a different floor of the residence hall, the entire building was locked down — though students were still permitted to leave for normal to-go meals at the Dining Commons. During the quarantine period, Health Services visited the dorm to administer COVID-19 test swabs to students each day. The initial full-building quarantine period, which began on Jan. 31, was extended twice, once on Feb. 2 and again on Feb. 4.
The College has not been forthcoming about specific case numbers to residential students living in North Rockefeller because of student privacy concerns, reported one student.
Kate Greenblatt ’24 lives on the third floor of North Rockefeller. “The lack of clarity generally left many people feeling uneasy and panicked,” Greenblatt said. “Not knowing how high their risk level was [or] whether it was someone on their floor that they had potentially shared space with or not.”
According to Greenblatt, the situation has been fraught with confusion among both students and administrators.
“I think the College is following through on the protocols they put in place to deal with spikes,” Greenblatt said. Still, she noted several inconsistencies in the College’s response to the rise in positive cases. “During the hall meetings, some people were pressing them on why the first quarantine — of just one floor for a few days — hadn’t been longer. … The College’s response was essentially that they knew quarantining was hard, and they didn’t want us to have to deal with it for too long.”
According to Greenblatt, students raised concerns over the College’s protocol for meals during the modified quarantine period. Students living in North Rockefeller initially obtained meals in person by entering through the usual entrance to the Dining Commons. Beginning on Feb. 3, students from North Rockefeller were told to access the Dining Commons through the Beacon Room’s patio entrance.
“That is further exposure to the outside world and of them [other students and staff] to us [North Rockefeller residents],” Greenblatt said. “I think the thing is really that this virus — the new strain at least — spreads very easily, and you can never be too safe. There’s always risk.”
“[It] made absolutely zero sense,” Geraldine Louis ’24, another resident of North Rockefeller, said about quarantined students being asked to collect food in person at the Dining Commons. “Their meaning of ‘quarantine’ was actually ‘restricted movements.’ If someone so happened to [test] positive, they could come into contact with others in the dining hall. The science says that you need to spend [a minimum of] 15 minutes with someone to contract COVID[-19], but my fears can’t process that.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, this “15-minute rule” helps define who the close contacts of an infected person are. Still, the CDC urges people to understand that this is a guideline, not a hard and fast rule for infection risk. There is no perfect duration of contact or distance that makes an encounter zero risk. For Louis, these fears are far from hypothetical: When on campus for the fall term, she tested positive for COVID-19.
“I had tested positive back in September on campus when I had contact with only three people who all tested negative,” she said. “It made no sense how I tested positive, so just being near someone for a minute scares me.”
Students like Louis have struggled with the isolation involved in self-quarantine.
“The constant ‘quarantine’ extensions [make] it seem [like] we’re going in loops,” Louis said. “It all depended on if all the test results came back negative. We were left in anticipation every day, waiting to see if we would be freed. It made me feel like I was being held hostage even though what we were doing was for our own good and the good of the campus.”
On Friday, Feb. 5, North Rockefeller residents were notified that the strictest level of quarantine had ended, and they were allowed to leave the building to obtain meals and walk around campus. On Monday, Feb. 8, students were allowed access to Auxiliary Services. Other campus buildings will remain off-limits to them until further notice.
The College declined to comment.