students in the age of COronavirus

 This body of work really grew out of my love for photojournalism and its ability to represent individuals and help tell their stories. I had already signed up for an independent study for this semester and had a completely different proposal for it in mind, one that simply could not be accomplished with COVID restrictions. So naturally, as many of us have had to do during this time, I adapted. Watching the news and talking to coworkers at my part-time summer job, I realised just how much college students were being left out of the COVID conversation. When we were included, it was just placing the blame on us or generalising our experiences into “well, they just have to do online courses now, that’s all,” when in fact many of us had been severely affected. We lost opportunities for internships and jobs, some lost their housing situations, others were financially struggling — I could go on for days about how we have been impacted by this and nobody was recognising it. I was frustrated, angry, and overwhelmed by the situation and felt my voice wasn’t being heard, a feeling I’m sure many of my peers can relate to. Rather than accept this defeat, I decided to give students a platform to express their emotions and experiences. If you’re interested in being a part of future iterations of this project, reach out to jtholt@email.wm.edu. The following interviews have been abridged and edited for clarity. Full interviews can be found at www.jamieholt.com. 

Name: Daniel Miller

Hometown: Arlington, VA

Year: Junior

Major: Government and Public Health 

Q: What was your reaction when the school announced like, “Hey, you’re not coming back to campus this spring?”

A: So okay, I have a really weird story. It actually happened in March. Okay, so I came home. First I was like “I’m invincible,” which was kind of stupid. On Thursday I woke up. I felt short of breath, and I developed a slight fever and a light cough throughout the day. On Friday I woke up, coughing and fever were gone, but I still had a shorter breath. And I had two asthma attacks that evening. I went to the ER, they gave me bla bla bla I came home, I was feeling better. This is like the middle of the night and I had another asthma attack. They gave me an inhaler in the ER so I did that and fell back asleep. Woke up on my couch. My symptoms just got worse. Shorter breath, body aches, fatigue,diarrhoea, headache, you name it — I had it. Um, so on that Sunday, I was sleeping all the time. And that Sunday, my dad woke me up in the late afternoon for dinner. I really hadn’t eaten anything that day, so he woke me up. And I was completely out of it. I did not remember what I ate for breakfast that morning. I did not remember what I ate the night before. And then when I tried to get out of bed to go to a table where I could eat something, I’m so lightheaded he had to help me to the table. Um, and then so I went to the shower thinking, you know, maybe it’ll help, you know, my lungs and just help me in general. My dad stood outside the door of my bathroom when I was having a shower because I was still lightheaded. Later that went away, but I still had all the other symptoms. And I had another asthma attack, so I went back to the hospital. This time, they refused to give me treatment because they were scared that if I had corona I would spread it. So I got tested. The first time I went, they told me three to five business days. So I was thinking sometime in the next week I didn’t get anything and was told seven to ten business days. Two weeks went by nothing. So I actually got a news story through the local news, ABC and eventually the doctors called like twelve business days in and basically said they had gotten my test back. It was negative based on the symptoms I presented and based on my sickness we think you had coronavirus at that time, since those swabs are only 70 per cent sensitive. They thought I was just a false negative. So I’m still, you know, in isolation for a long time, basically. So I went back to the hospital that Sunday, they refused to give me treatment, because they did tons of tests on me and I was there for like, four hours. And then, and then when everything came back negative, every other test came back negative, they’re like, we’re gonna admit you since we need to figure out what’s wrong with you. And then like, an hour later, they came back. And they’re like, you know, we’re not admitting you because you don’t meet the new standard for coronavirus to be admitted. That Monday things didn’t really improve. Monday night breathing was so hard, it hurt to breathe and I couldn’t fall asleep, I couldn’t lay down. So I had a complete restless night. And then Tuesday, I tele met with my doctor, my regular doctor, and she put me on another inhaler. And she sent me to an urgent care and it was so new that nobody knew what the effects of this territory would be on the virus. So basically went to the urgent care and they’re like, um, you know, here’s the airway. If you don’t feel better within a day, go to a hospital in Virginia. So luckily, the steroids worked, I began to feel better. Five days later, I went off and had a few other asthma attacks and like another four or five days passed and finally my asthma attacks were gone, But I had a headache and fatigue for at least another week or two after.

Name: Cèline Zalamea 

Hometown: Basking Ridge, NJ 

Year: Junior 

Major: Neuroscience and Applied Mathematics 

Q: Generally, how did your summer quarantine go? 

A: It was difficult for me because I usually take the summers to travel, like, I’m so blessed to be a very avid traveller and be able to have the means to do that. So I had a bunch of European travels scheduled for the summer. And so those all fell apart. So that was really disappointing. So I was kind of like, “kay, well, I no longer have like, internships because those were all going to be in Europe.” And so I was like, well, what do I do with my life now? So I ended up like doing online classes, which ended up being so much money because I’m out of state. I was like, “Damn, this is a lot,” but yeah, I didn’t pick up a job or anything. I mean, mainly I was studying. I had like one internship but it was very low key, not very difficult or anything. So it definitely felt like a low key summer which I’m sure everyone felt that way. But as someone who loves to be constantly doing something, I felt like I could be doing something more productive. 

Q: Where in Europe were you planning on travelling? 

A: I always go to Vienna every year because that’s my favourite city. And it just means a lot to me. And then I was going to go to Italy as well and probably around Italy and Switzerland because I grew up there and things like that. 

Q: So you’ve kind of touched on this a little bit, but like, throughout this time, have you had any major or even minor physical or mental health concerns with everything going on? 

A: Yeah, definitely. At the beginning, the first like two to three months, were the hardest months of my life literally. I just felt so out of place, and like, didn’t really know what my place was. Just like, in general, in my community, because I’m used to being the person who’s active in the community and doing things in my organisations and stuff. And I did not have anything to do and was just like, “Okay, what am I contributing to this world at this point?” So that was difficult, but on the other hand, it genuinely showed me who my closest friends were. And now that all those circles are a lot tighter. It definitely shows like, who’s really there for you. Who are your priorities and things like that. 

Q: How are you feeling about the future? You know, some people are very optimistic that this is gonna wrap up in two months, and everything’s gonna go back to normal. And some people think this isn’t ever going to go back fully normal. How are you feeling? Optimistic? Are you feeling nervous, anxious, a combination of all of it? 

A: It’s really weird, because I feel like two months ago, or even three months ago, when all this started, people were like, wearing masks everywhere and this going to be the new normal. And like, you don’t hear people saying that anymore. Because it literally is normal. And you don’t think about that stuff anymore. Like we have just adapted to it, whether or not we are like acknowledging that. And I can see this staying this way for a decently long time. Whether that be for another year or two, I think that we should ease into things. And I’m very optimistic that things will go back to normal. But I don’t think that it will be for a decent amount of time, just because this is something that affects the whole world. And we still haven’t gotten the cases down to what we’d hoped they would be. But I think if people just keep things up that it’ll be back to normal. 

Name: Rachel Akers

Hometown: Williamsburg, VA

Year: Senior

Major: Neuroscience, Biochemistry and Public Health

Q: So kind of right off the bat, you know, spring break. Where were you, what was your situation?

A: So it’s hard to explain without like, digging super into my personal stuff, but I don’t go to my parents very often. So um, I kind of live on campus permanently, like Williamsburg is my home, which really sucks. But anyways, I was living on campus junior year at Dawson. And I remember getting the news. I hadn’t gone anywhere for spring break, because I didn’t have anywhere to go. I work at Riverside Doctors Hospital in the emergency department. So you know, it was kind of just a normal spring break for me. I was working a lot, studying a lot, and being like, ‘Well, my friends are posting beach photos. This is pretty lame.’ But I got the call or the email or whatever and I was like, ‘Alright, I guess I should probably move out of my dorm into my boyfriend’s house’ because he had an off campus house in Williamsburg. So, yeah, that’s where I went.

Q: Gotcha. So was that where you went for the entirety of quarantine?

A: Yeah, that’s where I went until his lease ended in June. And once I got to that,

I found a one month sublease at an off campus house on Indian Springs. And then I moved into my own year lease off North Henry Street. Yeah, so that was really stressful. Like constantly moving around sucks. Moving and packing up. 

Q: So I guess on the same kind of trail, at first there was, ‘oh, we’re just pushing it back a week.’ Everybody’s like, ‘oh, extra spring break.’ And then, you know, we get the email that we had gone fully remote and we’re not coming back to campus at all. What was your reaction? 

A: Oh, I mean, I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist, or like a doomsday prepper, but I just think staying back home was pretty obvious to see. 

Q: So how did your summer quarantine go post-classes? 

A: It was really stressful because we had this very short period of time to adapt from very much in person using like EEGs to measure brain asymmetry and food neophobia. We ended up doing a great study that focused on validating questionnaires, so it was largely online. There was a lot of really interesting data collection, but ultimately, I do feel like my research was curtailed by COVID-19 which really sucks, but we’re trying to get it back on track maybe next semester, but I mean, I don’t think that’s gonna happen either. So then I was also studying for the MCAT that summer. I think the fine line is like staying busy and being productive versus like, thinking that you’re being busy and just you know, burning yourself out for no reason.

Q: During this period and now, have you had any physical or mental health concerns for yourself and/or for other people?

A: We see all these patients who have like very acute conditions and, you know, pages of past medical history, and it’s very contradicting stuff like hypertension, diabetes, congestive heart failure, all this like, they have like deep brain stimulators implanted, they have pacemakers, they have to be intubated multiple times. And you know, when you keep seeing these people come from the same place, and it’s like, ‘possible Covid positive’ you’re like, ‘okay, well, great. They’re gonna die.’ Well, I mean, it’s annoying that college students don’t take it as seriously as they should. Right? Because it’s not good. Anyways, back to my original point, which was I’ve seen a lot of physical stuff that definitely could have been avoided from COVID-19.

Name: Jack Thomas 

Hometown: Vienna, VA 

Year: Junior 

Major: Public Policy and Economics 

Q: So I’m gonna take you back to the spring. You know, the COVID: it’s kind of on the radar, but not really here in Virginia yet. Where were you for spring break? Did you stay here? Did you travel? Did you go home? 

A: I went home to Vienna and was actually kind of anticipating not coming back. 

Q: So were you in Vienna for pretty much this entire summer then? 

A: I was, yeah. I was originally slated to go to Beijing. And so I pretty early on, like January, February, I was like, I don’t think I’m gonna go. So yeah, I just hung out, took online classes, and stayed in my house with my parents and my brother. 

Q: Did you pick up any quarantine hobbies? I feel like everybody either started baking sourdough or something. So did you pick up any hobbies? 

A: I saw the sourdough craze going around, but I’m not the biggest baker. Actually, over spring break one of my projects was to help my parents clean out the house. So we got rid of a lot of like, a lot of junk. One of which was a bread maker we hadn’t used in like 20 years. And so two to like three weeks later, I see everyone making bread was and was like, ‘wow’. That was quite the experience. So I actually picked up cooking. I just tried a lot of new recipes I found online. I got pretty good at crème brulée which is something I never thought I would try. Yeah, just something to like, keep learning I guess. It’s really good to just try new stuff. 

Q: So this is one of those questions like, tell me as much or as little as you want to. Have you had any physical or mental health concerns either for yourself or other people? 

A: I definitely missed being able to like, play sports with friends. I love playing Frisbee. So like, that took a toll on my physical health just because I wasn’t working out as much, understandably, being in quarantine. But I’d said the other biggest thing was I had like a couple of really good friends who are immunosuppressed. And so like, not being able to necessarily hang out with them over the summer was kind of a bummer. I think because in the early spring, when classes went online, it was kind of this vague thing, COVID was, so I didn’t really anticipate the social effects maybe as much as I should have. And so kind of like an initial shock for me was being like, “Oh, like, I can’t hang out with people I’ve hung out with for the past, like 15 plus years.” Yeah. 

Q: So you mentioned your opportunity in Beijing for the summer on the same kind of thread, like something as serious as something like that, or even just as simple as missing hanging out with your friends, what are some opportunities you’ve lost because of COVID? 

A: Yeah that was something I was really looking forward to, going to Beijing, because I’d never been to Asia before. And I had taken Chinese for four semesters before that. And so it started as just kind of like the need to fill my foreign language requirement class, but turned into something I really enjoyed. So it was less about losing like the actual trip itself and more about like, “Ih, me and my Chinese learning experiences like over Zoom are final,” not exactly how I saw it going. And I recognize that like that’s a very bland you know, like of all the things that happened due to COVID, but I’d much much rather have that than anything serious. But I was really looking forward to that opportunity to really be in a place where I was really unfamiliar. I’m a tall white guy. So being in China was really new for me, in terms of how much I stand out, but I was really looking forward to that just being very vulnerable in a new place.