UF Housing and COVID-19

Written by Cole Hersom

Edited by Kian Thomas

With the release of UF’s reopening plan nearly 2 weeks ago (July 10th), the image of what UF life will be like this fall has become slightly clearer. If you have yet to read the plan, I would highly suggest looking over it, or at the very least look over the sections most pertinent to you https://coronavirus.ufl.edu/media/coronavirusufledu/Reopening-Plan.pdf.

Partnered with the release of this plan came the release of course settings for this semester. As such a majority of courses will be entirely online this fall, enabling students to minimize their risk by avoiding a classroom setting. Naturally, many students will avoid returning to Gainesville at all. And who can blame them? In the time since school closed back in March, Florida has become one of the largest hotbeds for COVID-19 in the world. According to the New York Times (as of 2PM on July 22nd), Alachua County alone has had over 2,800 cases (1,044/100,000 people) with 470 new cases in the past week. While this is not nearly as terrible as other counties in Florida, it is easy to image that this number will only worsen with an influx of students, faculty, and other associated people once school starts up.

While most courses will be fully online this semester, many will not. Many courses are offered as hybrid courses, often due to an in-person lab (though there are other situations as well). Due to these remaining in-person classes, as well as numerous other potential personal reasons, many students will be returning to Gainesville this semester. Of those students, some of the most reliant on UF’s plans include those living On-Campus. If UF is to become a new hotbed for COVID’s spread, then On-Campus students will find themselves living smack in the middle of it all. Here I’ll go over some of the information we know about UF’s Housing response, and some of the information we do not know.

What We Know

Deadline to cancel contracts was July 17th

After the announcement of UF’s new reopening plan and the release of course changes, students were given one week to cancel their contract with no fee. Typically, after contracts are signed students would face a fee for cancellation ($125 or $225 depending on how early you do it). While the change was certainly welcome for the week it was available, students now face that same cancellation fee if their situation changes.

No Triple Rooms

While roommates remain, a necessity given the limits to housing capacity, rooms will be capped at two people. Some of this can naturally be attributed to a lower residential population needing less room density, but it is also a decent measure to help lower the potential of transmission within rooms. As someone who lived in a triple last year, I know from experience that triples become tightly packed

Move-In is heavily staggered

Move-in day’s were already somewhat staggered to reduce traffic into campus and around the dorms. However, this semester they will be even further staggered to help minimize the potential contact between residents and whoever may be helping them to move in. Residents are limited to 2 guests to help them move in.

No Guests

With the exception of move-in day, no guests are permitted within rooms. While some restrictions already existed for guests within the dorms, especially after night, this is the firmest ever seen. If followed, this should help to keep any virus infiltration not coming from the residents themselves. Additionally, it will help with the enforcement of other rules put into place, as non-residents can be unfamiliar with the rules, and are harder to police.

Increased Sanitation

In my experience, dorms with large shared bathrooms already received cleaning once a day every weekday. Under the new plans, one would assume this cleaning will become more frequent, as well as more thorough. The cleaning will extend beyond bathrooms as well and apply to any frequent touch area (doors) and lobby/kitchen rooms. Furthermore, residents are said to be provided with hand sanitizer stations to help keep themselves sanitized.

Face Coverings Required

A cloth face-covering or mask is required everywhere at the dorms other than the residents’ private rooms, in-line with the University-wide mask mandate. As such (as it applies to dorms), masks must be worn throughout the building, in the bathrooms when possible, in dormitory common rooms, and outside whenever social distancing is not possible. Naturally, the question becomes how many bathroom activities can be completed while wearing a mask (teeth brushing, shaving, showers). UF’s response at the present is not specific enough to properly answer this.

Infected Residents will be Quarantined

According to UF’s public plan, residents that are infected will be quarantined at a location(s) separate from the rest of the dormitories for at least 14 days. There UF has said that they will provide “food, sundries, counseling and other services as needed” and “facilities and services are available when needed."

What is Less Sure

Enforcement

This concern definitely applies to the University in general, but it especially applies to on-campus housing. The published plans do not speak much on how the new mandates will be enforced, and encouragement plans are left vague at best. From what I gather from speaking with a Resident Assistant, enforcement in dorms will be similar to past rule enforcement, with incident reports for violators. However, no matter what the enforcement plan is, ultimately, there is a limited number of housing staff, and they cannot spend 24/7 policing residents to ensure they are following the mandates. A large responsibility will fall on students/residents to be responsible to themselves, and to help keep their fellow student responsible. Ideally this is not a major issue, but the nationwide public response has well indicated that this will become an issue.

The Quarantine Process

It is concerning how such a vital component of the prevention of COVID’s spread on campus is immensely vague. In both the published reopening plan, and in a release resident specific plan, the Quarantine/Isolation sections struggle to reach 4 sentences. For a process that will present such a disruption and source of stress to (likely) many students their little information present. What locations are the quarantine occurring? Is it on campus where it may spread out or is it a hospital location? How rapidly does this process occur? For most people test results take some time to return, days even. Are residents supposed to quarantine on location or in their room during the waiting period? Either answer has different implications for COVID’s spread. What is needed in order for testing to occur, volunteering or reports with suspicion? If a resident tests positive, is it assumed their roommate is also positive or do they also have to go through the testing process. How will residents be informed if their roommate or someone in the hall has tested positive? Once you test positive, are you allowed to return to your room to retrieve some belongings or are you whisked to quarantine in order to minimize spread? These questions and more are left unanswered by UF’s public plans. One would hope that these questions have come up during UF’s planning process, but it is concerning how little is shared with the potentially affected students.

What Happens if Things Go South?

Given the trajectory of the Nation and Florida especially, it is likely that the number of cases and deaths will continue to rise. What is the point at which UF cancels all in-person classes if that point even exists? Does there exist a point where UF will kick everyone out of the dorms? What is their plan if that point is reached? Hopefully, this plan exists, but as it stands, the University is not sharing that plan.

Answers from an RA

As part of preparation to write this post I conducted a short interview with a Resident Assistant at UF. The whole interview is available for everyone to see here, but I will share a few excerpts of interest.

In response questions about the specifics of the quarantine process: “I personally don’t know any of those things, and from what I remember seeing it was just that there may be a separate building somewhere set aside for quarantine students. Honestly most of the information I’ve received about reopening campus either 1) came from UF’s reopening plan itself, or 2) came from a higher up in housing, but what he/she gave was really only information relating to how the RA position is changing in response.”

Examples of how the RA position is changing: “… we’ll be trying to limit our movement as much as possible while still ensuring safety on the floor. We are still required to react to crisis scenarios in person, but we will have to wear masks/PPE and maintain social distancing while responding.”

In response to questions about enforcement of new mandates: “…UF Housing already has a system in place for reporting issues (like incident reports) that RAs can submit, and those are submitted at a higher level to be dealt with if necessary. While I have not received any confirmation of this whatsoever, my guess would just be that RAs who see people not abiding by the guidelines would most likely write an incident/information report regarding the residents participating…”

Advice for residents this semester/year, especially for incoming freshmen coming into this uncertain situation: “Definitely follow the guidelines set out. We are in the middle of a global pandemic. Wear masks, carry hand sanitizer, don’t go out in groups…if you don’t follow the guidelines set out, the possibility of a COVID-19 outbreak on campus goes up, which also means the chances of you getting sent home goes up. 2) Online learning can be difficult, so do not be afraid to reach out and ask for extra resources or help form professors, TAs, Ras, etc. Most classes are online now and that will definitely impact how you learn, so be prepared to adjust accordingly. 3) Hold yourself and your roommates accountable as much as possible. While it’s not your responsibility to watch after your friends like you’re their parent, it would help everyone on campus if you have friendly reminders about guidelines to follow, and encouraged your roommates to stay on top of their online work.”

Disclaimer: Thoughts and views of this interviewee are not necessarily the stance of the University of Florida Housing Department