Last week, I tested positive for COVID-19. It felt like half the campus was sick with me. You would be hard pressed to find someone who didn’t know someone sick. While the University of Maine and our community is in a post-pandemic rebuilding phase, the coronavirus is still rampant on campus. It appears that the University and its students are intentionally ignoring that COVID-19 still exists.
The University needs to return pandemic infrastructure back to campus. Americans finally normalized wearing a mask when sick. However, the mask boxes that were scattered across campus in my freshman year are now hard to come by. I had to go to four buildings before I found a box of masks. There used to be masks in every hallway and at every RA desk. While wearing a mask is no longer required on campus, the CDC still recommends masking when showing symptoms of a respiratory virus. The convenience of being able to grab a mask right outside the classroom enables and encourages students to cover up and stop the spread of disease.
UMaine no longer offers mass-free COVID-19 testing. In my freshman year, Estabrooke Hall had COVID-19 testing facilities and every student was given an at-home test at the start of the semester. I understand the demand for testing is lower, but testing still needs to be easy and accessible for students, otherwise they won’t do it. Buying a $16 dollar test at Hannaford can be cost prohibitive to students, even if they have the resources to get off campus to buy that test.
The University is not the only one to blame for this viral uptick. Students are not taking proper precautions when they are sick, and openly admitting to not testing for coronavirus because they do not want it to be positive. Students are openly admitting to not masking because of perceived peer judgment. However, UMaine is enabling this behavior. With COVID-19 tests now being cost prohibitive and mask boxes fading away, students are choosing to spread disease out of convenience.
The prevention of disease benefits everyone. Testing and staying home allows you to properly treat yourself. For others, getting coronavirus could be more serious than a sniffle. You do not know if a fellow student lives with an immunocompromised family member. You do not know if a fellow student can’t afford rent if they miss work for three days because they are sick. Masking and testing protect our most vulnerable community members, even if for you, COVID-19 is “just a cold”.
It’s convenient to pretend you are not sick when it is easier to do so than to take proper precautions. That’s why UMaine needs to make it easier for sick students to take precautions. We should return to starting students off with a coronavirus test in their dorm. We need to reinstall mask boxes across campus. As students, we need to take responsibility and proper precautions to prevent the spread of disease.