On May 14, flags across the United States were lowered in response to President Joe Biden’s direction in remembrance of the million Americans lost to COVID-19, a harrowing milestone in a pandemic that has altered life in significant ways. One day prior, Denver County raised the community level risk for COVID-19 from low to medium in response to a recent slow-but-steady surge. The one-week incidence rate for Denver county on the Friday of the announcement rose above 200, prompting the CDC-advised alert-level increase.
Both of these instances come on the heels of favorable news: more transmissible yet less fatal variants mean hospital ICUs are remaining well-below capacity; vaccination levels in Denver County are nearing 80% with 87.66% of the population immunized with at least one dose; and new antiviral pills—Paxlovid and molnupiravir, among others—now available to effectively mitigate symptoms for higher-risk individuals.
The back-and-forth of optimism and pessimism in the headlines is emblematic of a country struggling to reclaim a two-years-gone lifestyle while dealing with the persistent impacts of the pandemic. As people continue to unmask, the immunocompromised retain the burden of risk; as the United States basks in welcome statistics, mid- to low-income countries are in need of funding to catch up. Tension plagues the forward path as moral dams clash with social droughts years in the making.
It is upon this background that DU is planning its shift to an endemic response. In an April 28 announcement, COVID-19 Coordinator Sarah Watamura detailed the pending integration of the university’s COVID-19 response into existing departments, relieving the faculty team—Kim Gorgens, Derigan Silver, and Watamura—of their duties. The Office of Risk Management is set to absorb the overall response, mirroring the models of other universities, and Executive Assistant to the Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Therese Mashak will step into the role of Public Health Project Manager, dedicated to COVID-19 and public health initiatives on campus. The SPIT Lab, according to the release, will continue to operate.
“Together, we have built a community of care to respond to COVID-19 and the complex array of challenges brought to light or amplified by the pandemic,” Watamura said, taking on a notably past-tense voice. “Thank you for all you have given to this effort.”
Since March, DU has been under Alert Level Clear, relieving students of the requirement to wear masks in class and rolling back testing to around once a week for fully vaccinated students. Even during the recent surge of Hilltop visitors this spring, which led to a message today from Watamura increasing the frequency of testing, the Alert Level has held.
“At this time, we are not adjusting the alert level on campus, but we have increased testing frequency to more quickly curtail rising positivity on campus,” the May 17 message read. “Let’s work together to end the year strong.”
Regarding university policy, DU’s loosening restrictions are not without precedent. Well-lauded for their pandemic response, the similarly crimson-colored Harvard University recently transitioned to optional testing for residential students. Nearby CU Boulder ended testing for COVID-19 all the way back in August. The smaller, private Colorado College still requires surveillance testing for residential students.
It remains to be seen what the university’s policy will be, come autumn quarter, but as more universities do away with widespread virus screening, forgoing the cries of public health officials who value the transmission data, it is well within reason to predict that testing may be fully optional for students upon their return to the University of Denver.
At the present moment, however, DU is awkwardly straddling the line between a stricter, pandemic response and a looser, endemic response, leading to a mix of student frustration in regards to both.
“It was really frustrating,” said first-year engineering major Jisu Lee, speaking about the struggles of managing increasingly less-accommodating classes while isolated in Hilltop. “Some of my classes had Zoom options, which I participated in. However, I actually had a conflict with an exam in one of my [physics] classes.”
On her professor’s syllabus, it was required that students be in-person for all exams without the opportunity to make up missed exams. “I also reached out to Student Outreach and the Vice Provost of Student Affairs had a conversation with my physics professor, and I got the same response: that I can’t do any make-up exam,” Lee said.
Though students in the class are permitted to drop their lowest test scores, Lee received a zero on the exam, her infection creating a demand for academic perfection for the remainder of the quarter.
Productivity also becomes an issue for students stuck in the AC-less Hilltop Apartments. First-year Nicole Porticos went into isolation on Thursday, avoiding potential fallout from missed in-person classes, but still feeling the virus’ effects on her academics.
“I have had a couple of things that I’ve needed to finish for classes, but it’s been really hard to do that when my body is constantly being attacked,” she said.
“Since I was watching everything—my lectures, labs, and other things—online, I spent a lot of time watching the screen,” said Lee “I felt really tired watching it every day.”
Needless to say, the experience in Hilltop is difficult for many students and can create a sense of dread for those who test positive. Second-year Estelle Harbrooks, who spent five days in the former dorm said her experience was “mostly just hot.”
“I feel like when most people get that positive test they are less like, ‘Oh no, I have Covid,’ and more like, ‘Oh no I have to go to Hilltop,’” she later continued.
Combined with symptoms, these issues can make a stay at Hilltop seem more than physically isolating. However, students were sure to acknowledge the value of DU’s pandemic response, even considering the fallbacks; despite a pronounced vexation at ceaseless sacrifices, students still believe that some precautions are valuable.
Lee and Porticos both appreciated the separation they were given to recover from the virus without infecting others, and each advocated separately for an escalation in testing to prevent the concentrated spread of the virus, keeping more people out of Hilltop overall.
“Even if we are vaccinated and everything, I think it is still important to have the Covid testing policy,” said Lee. “I think [DU should] bring the [increased] testing policy back,” she continued.
“I know a lot of students, including myself, that tend to get really annoyed with testing, but I think the school needs to test more,” said Porticos, affirming Lee’s prior sentiment. “A lot of us realized we had been going to classes for half of the week with Covid symptoms without knowing it was Covid.”
Perhaps unwilling to return to the intense required testing of peak-pandemic life at DU, Porticos maintained that the responsibility should fall on the student. In an endemic response, this would seem most effective.
As much as the University is responsible for toeing the line between easing restrictions for an embodying student experience, students are responsible for remaining diligent in testing after the onset of symptoms. An endemic response will, for the time being, not be a return to normalcy but a test of the collaboration between institutional and personal moralities. Recognizing the privilege the DU student body has as an overall healthy population unconcerned with the serious impacts of COVID-19, neither can discard the lessons of the past two years.
In the spring air at DU, there is the buzz of optimism: a college experience reclaimed. Let this optimism remain, but not without the wisdom of these past two years. Let us walk the line together, without leaving the other behind by taking an angled path.
