Life in Lockdown

 

This past Monday was supposed to be the beginning of my senior year of college at Ohio Northern University. This past Monday was my first day, however, I was not able to attend any of my classes in person. Why? This is a little story all about our well known friend COVID-19.

I moved back to Ada over a week ago as did one of my roommates. She is from Florida and had had a long drive from down south. We were both ecstatic to be starting our senior year together as well as living together. This all went downhill a few short days later when my roommate’s mom informed her that she had tested positive for COVID-19. My roommate, taking the right precautions, locked herself in her room to keep myself protected as well as my other roommate who was moving in the following day. Trying to figure out what to do, my roommate called the health center here at Ohio Northern. To both of our surprise, the health center had told my roommate that it was not necessary for her to get tested for the virus. She ended up ordering her own test online and it was delivered and picked up that same day. A day or two later, we were notified that my roommate had tested positive for COVID-19. The health center then took action by contacting my other roommate and myself to let us know that we were going to have to all three quarantine in our house for 14 days. We were devastated because this meant we could not attend our first day of classes as seniors. 

We all three cried and expressed our anger and frustration with one another as well as with our close friends and family. This was not the news we had wanted to hear before starting class on Monday. Everyone was coming back to campus, which was a topic of concern for us students over the summer. We wanted to see our friends and go to our classes. This now wasn’t an option for our household. 

The health center told my roommate she had to go take another test in Lima at a hospital in order to have a more accurate and reliable test to go off of. Online tests that people order themselves are not as reliable, especially the ones from the company that my roommate bought hers from. This company that sells COVID-19 has had numerous reports of unopened and unused tests coming back and testing positive. The interesting part of this story is that my roommate’s mom got another two tests done to confirm or deny her case and both tests came back negative. Every other person in my roommate’s family also got tested and their results came back negative. So, we are not confident that my roommate’s test she took herself is accurate. We all three have not shown any symptoms of the virus and feel perfectly healthy.

However, we still do not know for sure. We are still awaiting the test results from her test that she took five days ago. We were told we would know either Monday or Tuesday the results. Today is Wednesday and every single time my roommate calls the hospital to speak with them, the call goes straight to voicemail. We are sitting in limbo awaiting these results and there is nothing we can do about it. We all 3 must be cleared by the health center before we are allowed back in class (or in our case be allowed to finally attend class physically). 

We are all starting to go a little stir crazy to say the least. We want to see our friends and our professors. We want to sit in a classroom and learn with our peers. We want to be able to go to the library and study (or at least pretend to study). We want to have to buy a coffee from the coffee shop in order to try to stay awake to study our class material. We wanted to spend the first day of our final year of college in class, not online while we watch the rest of our classmates sit in class. Sure, this whole year has not been ideal in the slightest, but COVID-19 has overstayed its welcome. 

We are trying to make the best out of the situation we are currently in. I dressed up on Monday to send the first day of school picture to my family. I know this has been hard on them as well having to hear from me that I can’t go to my classes in person.  

If my roommate’s test results come back negative, we can go to class the next day. However, if the results come back positive, we must stay in quarantine for a few more days. I know my family and friends have been all reaching out to me to express their condolences, which is nice. However, all we want at this point is to be able to leave our house and start our senior year of college the right way. Hopefully, we will be given some good news as soon as possible.