UMD students concerned about the rise of COVID-19 on campus

The University of Maryland’s symptomatic testing site located outside of the University Health Center. (Mario Morais/The Black Explosion)

By: Mario Morais and Taylor Edwards

Many thought the invisible enemy would disappear as the vaccines started to roll out, however, COVID-19 has slowly crept back onto campus as the university returns to in-person learning. 

As classes began in September, the preventative measures such as mask mandates, vaccine requirements, and on-site testing, seemed to be working. However, in the weeks that followed, students and faculty began receiving notifications regarding positive infections of students in several university classes and residence halls. 

Specifically, COVID-19 started to make its presence in dorms across North Campus. By the third week after classes had started, students in the Cambridge and Ellicott communities have received notices of mandatory testing due to increased cases in the Cumberland and Ellicott dorms. Although some student faculty like Darren Chang, a sophomore computer science major and resident assistant in Cumberland Hall feel somewhat helpless in the efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19. 

“The thing about the COVID policies is that they are very difficult to enforce. Cause if you try to enforce them every single time you see someone not wearing their mask, you’re gonna be staying up all night writing reports,” Chang said.

The increase in cases has some students worried about what their future at the university might look like with these current trends. Sophomores are worried about reliving their experience from last year should COVID-19 cases increase. Isabella Grady, a sophomore engineering and dance double major is worried about catching COVID and bringing it back to her family if she goes home.

“It’s one thing not to feel good and not go to class, or if you can keep your coughing and sneezing to yourself and control it. But if you’re coughing a lot, you need to cough in your dorm, not in the lecture hall,” Grady said.

After seeing what happened to sophomores last year, freshman students like Asa Agyemang, an information science major living in Ellicott Hall are worried about the potential of a return to virtual learning should trends continue.

“I would basically be paying an extreme amount of money to do online classes, a repeat of high school, and that year of high school where we did have online school was just so mentally taxing. It’s just not an experience I would like to go back to,” said Agyemang.

In an attempt to track COVID-19’s spread, the University Health Center along with the Division of Information Technology installed QR codes in the university’s large lecture halls and some small classrooms. The idea is for students to scan the code for the Health Center to identify where a student was seated in the event of a positive case in the classroom. However, not all students are taking advantage of this measure which makes it hard to conduct accurate contact tracing. 

“Most of my classes are high school-sized, maybe 20-25 people,” Agyemang said. “I have not seen any of the contact tracing going on.” 

While the proportion of positive cases currently seem minimal, with only 255 positives according to the Diamondback’s Coronavirus Dashboard, the uncertainty of variants and UMD’s own unvaccinated population is cause for concern. It’s unclear if recent attempts by the university, like the distribution of KN95 masks, will be successful in calming the nerves of students. But right now, students can wear their masks, get vaccinated, get tested, and maintain social distance to help stop the spread.