RALEIGH, North Carolina, USA
The first college students to return to their dorms are not running into the usual crowds of students and parents. What they found Friday was strict security protocols and a little more anxiety amid an increase in coronavirus infections in dozens of states.
North Carolina State University staggered the return of its students over the course of 10 days and welcomed the first 900 students to the campus, where they were greeted on Friday by volunteers wearing face masks and plastic masks, and wearing its distance.
The initiation rite was a well-organized, but discreet matter, in which the boxes were unloaded, the luggage transported and the beds hauled.
“It is strange not to see anyone. You expected hustle and bustle and all that, but there was nothing. It was pretty empty, ”said Dominick DePaola, a freshman from Charlotte, North Carolina.
Across the country, students are having to go through additional obstacles like tests, travel quarantines, and strict regulations.
Elon University in North Carolina sent test kits to all 7,000 students before they arrive in a few weeks. Colby University of Maine will test students before they arrive and then three times a week for the first two weeks on campus. They will be tested twice a week after that, until the end of the semester.
The University of Rhode Island reduced campus accommodation to meet the social distancing requirement, causing difficulties for some students.
At North Carolina State, the university regularly houses 10,000 students, but this fall it will have 6,700 at its Raleigh campus, Principal Randy Woodson said. And those students were arriving for an extended period instead of all at once in a single weekend as usual.
“Like the rest of the world, we have to figure out how to move on,” said Betsy Flanagan, who sent her first-year son Arch to college. “This virus is not going to go away and is going to stay with us for a long time, so we have to think about how to exist safely and that includes continuing to educate our future.”
In West Virginia, a university extended the welcome mat on Friday for students and their families, but had to temporarily remove it.
Within eight days, students at West Virginia State University, which is small and traditionally has been for African-Americans, were assigned staggered two-hour periods to unload their belongings and take them to their residence halls, and they were then sent home until the fall semester begins on August 10.
“I have nothing to worry about,” said Jihad Shockley, a second-year resident who coordinates activities and hails from Columbus, Ohio. “It’s more or less like this: if you catch it, then you go into a two-week quarantine (and) hope you do well. I think it doesn’t scare me too much. “
Nationwide, the second wave of confirmed cases of the virus appears to be normalizing. However, scientists warn that trend is fueled by four heavily affected entities – Arizona, California, Florida and Texas – and that cases are increasing in more than two dozen other states.
The students seemed willing to accept the risk and move on.
–
