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Campus COVID-19 policies evolve, students mixed on response

Elisa Sosa
Trinity Washington University junior Elisa Sosa wears a face mask while studying in Main Hall Feb. 28, 2023, several days after the school’s COVID-19 mask mandate was lifted. The university’s new policy makes wearing face masks inside campus buildings optional. (Trinity Times photo/Miriam Barcenas)

By Sonovia Pryor
Trinity Times Correspondent

Although mask regulations have been lifted on the Trinity Washington University campus, COVID-19 remains a pandemic, and the college community is approaching this stage of the sickness with varying perspectives.

There are still worries and health concerns about the coronavirus, which has killed more than 1.12 million people in the U.S. as of February 2023, even though some Trinity students and staff started to disregard the campus masking restriction precautions in the final months they were in place.

Mary Abedayo, a senior at Trinity, is comfortable with the policy change making masking optional campuswide because students and staff are required to be vaccinated.

“Sometimes I still wear my mask for safety precautions because my health is important,” Abedayo said. “I think President Pat McGuire is doing what she can in this situation to accommodate everyone.”

Though 49% of the 374 Trinity students, professors, and staff who responded to a Jan. 30 survey stated they supported abolishing the campus mask mandate, 39% said they wanted to keep the mask requirements in place to help prevent the spread of COVID and other illnesses.

The U.S. population and academic institutions are still adjusting to evolving COVID policies, but the ongoing pandemic has had a long-term impact on the Trinity community.

Individuals navigate through campus with heightened awareness of the spread of disease, almost everyone has experienced loss and illness, teaching and learning techniques have shifted to a combination of in-person and virtual classrooms, and the university’s mental health services have been increasingly utilized.

According to Anne M. Cosimano, one of Trinity’s counselors, the university’s Health and Wellness Center has seen a surge in referrals throughout the pandemic, particularly for mental health counseling.

Cosimano told the Trinity Times that abrupt life changes and personal loss have been exceedingly difficult for some people to cope with.

“The unknown is really hard for all of us,” she said.

A sign encouraging wearing face masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19 is seen in a campus building at Trinity Washington University Feb. 15, 2023. The university ended its mandatory mask mandate Feb. 21, making the practice optional. (Trinity Times photo/Sonovia Pryor)

It has been more than two years since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, and the coronavirus swiftly caused illness, death, and economic hardship at alarming rates. 

Trinity Washington University students vividly recall the unprecedented disruptions to their college careers and moments of uncertainty they experienced as details surrounding the public health emergency emerged and how their lives were impacted.

“My mind was kind of like altered with everything because I was not hearing any good news,” Abedayo said. “It was just always negativity.”

On March 30, 2020, District of Columbia Mayor Murial Bowser issued a stay-at-home order, following jurisdictions across the country, stating that residents could only leave their homes to engage in essential activities such as receiving emergency medical care, obtaining food and household goods, and performing functions for essential businesses and government entities.

Trinity officials also implemented safety protocols, which included shifting all classes from in person to virtual learning platforms and establishing face mask requirements on campus.

Both students and faculty faced challenges with having to quickly pivot to an entirely new structure of operations and the virtual learning platform was not ideal for all students.

“I feel like you get a better experience when you’re in the class… and you’re amongst your peers,” Abedayo said. “Transitioning to Zoom, it was like we were so secluded away from everything. Not really interacting with everybody or getting the real on hand feeling of the campus, the classmates and the professors, so it was very different.”

In addition to adapting to new ways of life, students and faculty were faced with personal loss and grief.

Students and faculty say the effects of COVID-19 was not only physically detrimental, but it was also mentally and emotionally damaging.

“I lost a dear friend” in 2020, Abedayo said, “through the impact of COVID. Not knowing what’s next, she took her life.”

“Just as the pandemic was emerging, I lost my brother to COVID and then a month later I found myself hospitalized for nearly a month from COVID,” said Tresa Welch, a sociology professor at Trinity and a doctorate student at George Washington University. “So just coming off of his death and coming off of my own illness, I was very much afraid.”

Referrals to the campus Health and Wellness Center began to increase.

A sign identifying the Health and Wellness Center hangs above its campus entrance at Trinity Washington University Feb. 15, 2023. The COVID-19 pandemic increased the referrals to the Health and Wellness Center. (Trinity Times photo/Sonovia Pryor)

“People were having trouble getting work done in the pandemic because it was new to them, but they were also dealing with all this stuff around us,” said Cosimano when talking about the early 2020 referrals from both students and faculty. There was “so much loss, so much fear of the unknown. I think a lot of people came to us because professors were concerned, staff were concerned, people were just concerned and not sure how to cope.”

The societal shutdowns also limited other support networks, such as churches, for people dealing with this “new normal,” and with campus largely closed, the Health and Wellness Center began offering virtual counseling sessions, which she indicated will continue beyond 2023.

“Adaption for me was tough,” Welch said. “My first emotion associated with COVID was grief, the second one was fear, and it took me more than a year to reconcile those. The way I adapted was to stay home and to stay away from people. I have family members that I used to see quarterly that I did not see for two-plus years because of that.”

Some students tapped into optimism and faith to keep themselves grounded.

“Since I’m religious, I just kept faith and prayed,” Abedayo said, “hoping for a better tomorrow.”

Anxiety, depression and substance use disorder all increased since the pandemic began, according to a 2021 National Institutes of Health study. About half of Americans surveyed reported symptoms of an anxiety or depression condition, and 10% said their mental health needs were not being met.

Suicides in the United States increased by 4% — from 45,979 in 2020 to 47,646 in 2021, according to preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics.

Trinity ended its requirement that face masks be worn while inside campus buildings Feb. 21, however COVID vaccines are still mandatory.

That decision came after the Biden administration publicly announced plans to officially end the COVID-19 public health emergency in May.

“The federal government is saying things that would lead us to believe that we are coming out the pandemic, and I believe that’s true,” Welch said. “I do believe that with vaccinations, social distancing and even (herd) immunity that we are heading toward coming out of the pandemic.”

What’s not known yet are the long-term physical, social and mental impacts of the pandemic, she said. “The interesting and yet unfortunate thing about the pandemic is that outside of the (early 20th century) Spanish Flu pandemic, we don’t have anything to really compare this disaster to,” Welch said. “We’re still in the pandemic, so what this will mean having been in a pandemic for such a protracted length of time, we will be figuring out for the next several years.”

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