Two days after I made my inauspicious return to the classroom, one of the students in class emailed me to tell me he’d tested positive for the coronavirus.
“Oh no,” I said. “Are you vaccinated?”
“Yes, fully,” he said. “I woke up the day after class feeling sick, and the next day I got tested. Got the results today. Positive. I’m still feeling really sick.”
Now what? I thought. “Did you contact the school?”
“I looked all over the website,” he said. “I can’t figure out who I’m supposed to contact.”
“OK,” I said. “Let me see what I can find out.”
“Shit,” I said, looking at my husband. “One of my student’s tested positive.”
“Were you near her?”
“I don’t even know who she is,” I said. “It was the first class. I just met them.”
“That’s a problem.” he said. “Do you have to quarantine?”
“I have no idea. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now. I’m going to contact my department and see what they say.”
30 minutes later I had my answer. Or at least part of my answer. My department chair forwarded my questions to the dean. He reported it to the COVID response team who emailed me to ask for the name of the student.
I complied. “Am I supposed to do something now? Let the students know? Quarantine myself? Should I go back to teaching on Zoom, at least till we get through the quarantine period?”
The answer, surprisingly, was no. The school would contact the students. Only the unvaccinated (and the student who got infected) would need to quarantine. Class would go on as planned.
That was it. The unvaccinated would quarantine, but for the rest of us? No tests. No quarantine. No nothing.
The unvaccinated. I wondered how many of those there were. When I’d met with them the week before, I’d assumed most of them had gotten the vaccine. Of course they had, right? It was a part of my Welcome to in-person classes in the era of COVID spiel… “If you’re not already vaccinated, please do so,” I’d said, fulling believing that I was preaching to the choir.
By the next class I had my answer. 11 students were missing. 10 students who were unvaccinated. 11 who would now be missing for the next two weeks while they quarantined. 10 unvaccinated students in a class of 30.
A third of the class. I was shocked. How on earth is that possible?
If I’m going to be honest here, the whole vaccination thing drives me crazy. I understood the hesitancy, especially in the beginning when the vaccine was new and approved only on an emergency basis. But that should be rectified by now. I mean, as of this moment, the vaccine has full FDA approval. More than 48 million people have gotten the vaccine. And besides a day or two of flu like symptoms… what has been the downside?
And yet, millions more refuse to get a vaccine that literally saves lives. Your own. Your loved ones’. Your neighbors. Colleagues and yes, even those of complete strangers. The vaccine keeps people out of the hospital. Off ventilators. The vaccine cuts down the breeding ground for the virus. And maybe, just maybe, we can end this goddamn pandemic someday.
Honestly, I do not understand.
I teach at two schools that have mandated vaccines for people who want to return to campus. I fully agree. I appreciate the commitment to students and staff. One school, the one where 1/3 of the class is now in quarantine, has yet to do so. I do hope they will follow suit soon, but so far there is no mandate and so students and faculty do not have to do the right thing.
Meanwhile, the COVID virus morphs into new, more contagious variants. Infections are on the rise again. Hospitals are filled with COVID patients. Children are getting sick. Some are even dying.
I’m angry. I’ve always believed that, all things being equal, people will more often than not do the right thing. I’ve always believed that people are good at their core. That we are hard-wired to care for one another. That we have a responsibility, all of us, to bring goodness into the world. To tend to the sick and the suffering. To give where we can. To practice kindness and love. In humanity there is commitment.
Do I believe in freedom? Of course I do, but with freedom comes responsibility. I do not believe that personal freedom allows us to do whatever the hell we want.
Call me stupid. Call me naive. Call me Pollyanna, but this is what I believe.
In recent years I have struggled to hold on to those beliefs. I recognize that everyone doesn’t believe what I do. I try to be open, to stay out of judgement, especially when I come across people whose values are different than mine. But now, in the face of life or death, when so many around the world are suffering, I’ve reached my breaking point.
On week 2 I looked out at the 20 vaccinated students that came to class. They had questions, as you might imagine.
“If you can still contract and transmit the disease if you’re vaccinated, why don’t we have to quarantine too?”
“Should we even be here? Is it safe for us?”
“I have my grandparents living with me, what if I become exposed?” and
“Why is it OK for someone to make a decision that has the potential to impact my health and safety?”
Great questions. Hard questions. Questions about matters of life and death.
I have them too. I wish someone had the answers.
