There are now 34 “isolation bathrooms” in the College’s residential halls. Photo by Emma Swan ’23.
*Editor’s Note: This piece came from an email sent by Eric Santomauro-Stenzel ’24 to the COVID-19 Task Force, Student Assembly and the editors-in-chief of The Spectator and The Monitor on Wednesday, April 20.*
Dear Members of the COVID-19 Task Force,
I write to you all with considerable fear for the well-being of the student body and for some of your careers, in addition to Hamilton’s reputation. Predictably, when we resumed classes following Spring Break without any kind of universal mask requirement as students came back from across the country and world without any requirement for a verified negative test before return, we had over 50 new student cases. In the past few weeks we have added a few hundred more. The growth of this outbreak is increasing despite the Steering Committee’s decision to move to Green Status and stop indoor events with food. Now, you are subjecting students to living in dorms with people you know are infected. Handwaving people have been doing about “if you’re concerned, just take more precautions yourself!” is now totally out of question, as I live in a dorm room about 15 feet from a bathroom infected people will be using daily. You have taken away all opportunities for us to truly protect ourselves.
With, by my count, (since the website only shows data from the past week; please address this) an overwhelming majority of cases this semester occurring since Spring Break and the pace continuing to grow despite adding some protections again,
it has come time to move to Yellow Status.
Correct me if I am wrong, but we currently have the highest average seven day positivity rate since the start of the pandemic. Yet, compared to last year, we have some of the weakest policy protections.
With approximately a quarter of the whole student body having tested positive in the past few weeks, I do not know what higher threshold we could possibly have to justify swift action to stem this for the sake of the well-being of our “Hamily.” I must remind you that even with “mild” cases,
people continue to contract life-long chronic illnesses and disabilities
with alarming regularity. However, I understand that for many who run this institution there are other priorities to consider than the well-being of those you are responsible for keeping safe.
Decisions made this semester by members of the Steering Committee are directly responsible for almost half of students getting infected this semester.
In what world can you possibly call this a success?
For those of you whose priorities in this decision expand beyond our well-being to the College’s reputation and avoiding public pushback to your decisions:
What do you think it says about Hamilton relative to our NESCAC peers that we have the greatest percentage of infected students over this semester?
What do you think the rate of alumni giving will be for a class whose final memories of Hamilton will be a scaled-down or mostly shut down Class & Charter Day and Commencement?
What impact do you think hearing, say, “half of Hamilton students have been infected with COVID-19 in the past 12 weeks” will have on prospective students and parents?
If you are fearful of the reaction to imposing stronger protections now, with the explicit goal of salvaging our most cherished warm month on campus, what do you think campus reaction will be to hearing that those events will be scaled-down, postponed or canceled altogether? There is already quite a lot of discontent about the postponing of the underclassmen formal.
If, in the tragic event it occurs, an immunocompromised member of our “Hamily” dies from COVID-19 as a result of this outbreak, which national publication do you think will cover it first? As I think we all know given recent major investments into the Counseling Center, Hamilton needs to do a lot of work to repair its public image when its name appears in national print.
This article
is still the third result for “NY Times Hamilton College” on Google, and
this article
is on the first page of results for “mental health Hamilton College.”
In the event this developing worst-case scenario comes to fruition, which individuals on this task force will end up being held responsible both in public and private?
The decisions made regarding pandemic policy this semester represent a desire to have our cake and eat it too: minimal protections, minimal cases.
The current outbreak is a direct result of the significant relaxation of policies (some of) you decided to enact going into Spring Break, setting standards far below any previous semester in the pandemic.
I was quite disappointed to see no recognition of a need to do something different post-break in last week’s
The Spectator
interview with the chair of the task force; I am genuinely surprised it would appear no lessons have been learned from the immense pain our community is going through right now. If that interview was intended to inspire confidence in your decision-making ability, I assure you it did quite the opposite to say there’s nothing you can name having wanted to do differently following a quarter of the student body getting infected in a single month.
As I wrote
about our first outbreak in January and have come to witness firsthand frequently, especially in KJ, the relaxation of the mask mandate has made it much more difficult to get compliance with its reimposition when we most need it. After a long winter, students now have the displeasure of spending what is often the most enjoyable month of the year in isolation and with significantly reduced events. Do you really believe in your hearts that the students isolating on campus will all just stay in their rooms, will wash down the bathrooms and only go to Pub for food? Especially when so many students’ attitudes are that if they’re asymptomatic, they’re fine to socialize? What about suites? I know you’re all quite intelligent people, so I also know you are aware these measures won’t actually work.
It is incumbent upon you to stem this now, rather than continuing to pursue the “let’s wait and see” approach without any clear benchmarks determining when and how decisions are made (e.g., if we hit X cases in X time we move to X status), a case-by-case decision-making process that is inherently at the whims of momentary political and PR expediency. The recent announcement about events with food is exactly an example of this piecemeal approach. I hope we can learn from the past few weeks that this incremental approach will not have the intended effect of reducing cases significantly as they continue to trend upwards.
It’s not easy being the bad guy, I understand. People hated many things about last academic year. I promise you that if we continue this path that anger will be just as strong if the bright lights people have been looking toward in the distance are extinguished because this outbreak has intensified to the point no other choice exists, both on the part of Hamilton and students fearing for their own safety.
Yours,
Eric Santomauro-Stenzel