WILL SCHOOL CONTINUE AMIDST RISING COVID CASES?

 I like to believe that we are going to make it to the end of the semester although there are so many unanswered questions left concerning this whole pandemic. The first step UK made in the right direction compared to other big universities, that shut down just some weeks after resumption, was making sure each student and staff was tested before classes started. Although some of these big Universities that shut down also tested their students and staff most of them made testing optional and also did pool testing. UK faculty also did a good job preparing for classes before resumption. A lot of my professors reached out to me letting me know whether the classes were moving fully online or they were going to be in-person or a hybrid class before the beginning of August. This made easy for students to know whether they wanted to move back to campus dorms or off-campus housing or just stay home if all their classes were online. In-person classes' locations were mostly changed to bigger classroom locations and signs were put up in different seat spaces to ensure social distance was maintained in these classrooms. 

Another reason I believe the school wouldn't close down is because of all the extra efforts UK put in handling coronavirus cases. One extra effort they put in was hiring different roles in contact tracing. The roles in contact tracing are divided into contact tracers who collect and analyze data surrounding coronavirus cases and the contact tracers who call students and staff to inform them they have come in contact with people who tested positive for coronavirus. These people that are called are told to quarantine in their rooms where meals and other personal items like laundry bag are made available to them by health corps (an organization hired by the University of Kentucky to manage everything Covid). There is also a problem with that as they are not supervised to ensure they are quarantining and as an RA I have seen people that were meant to be in quarantine leaving their room. UK also set aside 3quarantine dorms for people who test positive for Covid-19. 

Lastly to answer this question I used the response most of my friends gave in why they don't think the school will shut is because of money and reputation. Having lost so much money last semester when we moved online, the school is hoping to make up for the money they lost with tuition and housing fees from this semester so if they close they will have to refund most of it to students. Also, University of Kentucky believe they will make a good reputation compared to other universities if they are able to stay open for the rest of the semester without a major outbreak

GETTING BACK TO SCHOOL

I am currently an RA (Resident advisor) for Boyd hall one of the dorms on North Campus. As an RA, I was required to move in on August 1st, a week earlier than the residents. I like to believe RAs were lab rats to test the university plans for welcoming students back on campus. During RA training many questions were left unanswered  and we gave them an insight into situations they didn't consider in bringing students back to campus. One of the main situations they were able to resolve before students moved back in was providing another quarantine facility in case the other two set aside was filled up. Ingels Hall on central campus was turned into the main quarantine facility therefore all the staff there, including I, was moved to other dorms. Move in to the dorms was entirely different from last year. Firstly, only one family or two people were allowed in the elevator which made movement within the building really slow, students were advised to move in with only two extra people and also compared to last year no football players or athletes helped people move in. Also signs were put up on each floor of the buildings in front of the elevator, on the kitchen door and in the entrance of the building. The signs are below

Moving in, UK students were welcomed with a wellness kits which was placed in each rooms by the RA. This wellness kits had two masks, a mask bag, a bottle of hand sanitizer, a thermometer and a pack of alcohol wipes. Everything was entirely different this year included K week. K week was shortened from its usual 7 day program to only 4 days. It was held both in-person and online via zoom. I was a K week leader for the virtual team and we were required to host zoom versions of very event like campus ruckus, campus tour and the welcome meeting. My friend who was an in-person leader told me that the major change was k teams were divided into different time frames to attend campus ruckus and that each event was socially distanced. A picture she took of her K team is attached below

The wellness kit given to every students and staff of UK.

       picture of my friend's K team masked up and physically distanced.

INTRODUCTION TO COVID-19

My name is Oluomachukwu Anaenugwu and I am a black girl originally from Nigeria. I am 18 years old and currently a sophomore studying public health with a minor in Biology. At the beginning of this year 2020, I enrolled in a class called CPH 201: Introduction to Public Health. This class was taken in the peak of Covid-19 and this class covered epidemiology which is the basically the study of patterns of disease occurrence and the factors affecting those in factors. This class covered terms like pandemic, quarantine, incidence rate (number of new cases), prevalence rate (total number of cases) and mortality/death rate. Therefore, the pandemic acted as a real life example/application of the concepts learned in the class. That is all I took Covid-19 for at first, a real life example, not until we transferred fully online after spring break that I knew this was very serious. 

As an international student, when the school moved fully online we received an email that stated "all undergraduate students must be moved out by noon on Friday, March 27." 

I was panicking because I had no idea where to stay or what to do and all this was happening while classes were transitioning to an online format so this was a recipe for confusion and disaster. Thankfully, it turned out that we could still stay in the dorms. My plan right from the beginning of the second semester of my freshman year was to go back home in Nigeria to spend the summer with my family but due to the Covid-19 situation the trip was postponed till June with the hope that the situation will be better. June came by but the situation had gotten worse. I still wanted to go back home but my mum didn't want to risk my health and also the Covid-19 situation had gotten worse back at home. Even if I tried my very best to go home, all the borders were closed. I ended up spending summer alone in an apartment close to campus. The major way covid-19 changed my life was the increased number of times my mum and family called a week to check up on my mental being and health. I can say the closest I think I have come to Covid-19 was when I took a trip this summer to Atlanta (a Covid -19 hotspot with about 100,000 cases as of July).