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Oct. 23 started as a regular day for Tate Durand ’23. They woke up, attended a friend’s birthday breakfast, then returned to their on-campus residence for a nap. However, when they rose to several missed calls from the health services center, they immediately had a strong suspicion that they had tested positive for COVID-19.
According to Durand, when they returned the missed calls, they were told that, due to the fact that they live in close proximity to the College, they were offered the chance to pack their belongings and quarantine at home. Alternatively, they could choose to stay in Mount Holyoke’s designated student isolation housing.
“I chose not to go because my friend had an awful experience with them. So I didn’t want to stay on campus just in case I did have symptoms at some point,” Durand said.
Instead, Durand, who lives in Connecticut, packed up their things and drove themselves home.
“My parents didn’t answer the phone for a good 30 minutes while I was packing my bags frantically and sobbing,” Durand said.
Contract tracing
Upon arriving in Connecticut, Durand recalled receiving a phone call from the College’s contract tracing team asking them to list and spell the names of those with whom they had been in recent contact.
However, Durand later heard from a friend whom they had named that no one from the contract tracing team reached out to the close contacts for at least five days after they received their positive test results.
“The thing that most agitated me about [the College’s COVID-19 protocol] was contact tracing,” Durand said. “I feel like this is important for the general college community to know because it was so fucked up. Excuse my language, but they contact-traced me on Saturday night and no one was contacted until after one of my friends personally went to the Health Center and was like ‘Why have we not been contacted?’”
Additionally, Durand described their frustration with the process of receiving academic accommodations during their quarantine period. According to an email that Durand shared with the Mount Holyoke News, they received correspondence from their academic dean stating that they had contacted all of Durand’s professors and would grant them access to course notes upon request for any courses that were staffed by a note-taker.
“I emailed her back that day and I said I would love to have the notes for the classes. Some of my classes were online. Some of [my professors] barely had contact with me,” Durand said.
Despite their written request, Durand said that they did not gain access to the notes for their course until after they had returned to campus from quarantine.
COVID-19 safety
Durand is no stranger to the threat of COVID-19. Last school year, Durand chose to take a gap year from Mount Holyoke. The junior, who was originally in the class of 2022, spent their time working what they called “odd jobs,” including childcare roles where children were not required to mask, and managing a Dunkin’ Donuts, which was considered frontline work at the beginning of the pandemic. Despite the high risk nature of their work, Durand never once tested positive for COVID-19.
“It shocked me because I was working one-on-one with kids who were never vaccinated, with no masks on. I was working face-to-face, like food service work. And also at one point my entire family got it and I was living in the same house as them and I didn’'t get it. I did not get it until being back on campus and I was very shocked by the fact that I did not get it but I was regularly testing during those times [before returning to campus],” Durand said.
Outside of working, Durand spent much of their time in the house in a tight bubble with their family. They would also get tested for COVID-19 regularly to help mitigate the risk of bringing the virus home to their family.
“We were very in the house until we were vaccinated,” Durand said. “I didn't want to come back with it and give it to my mom because she’s heavily immunocompromised. After … my whole family was [vaccinated], it was more so for my own safety of like, knowing if I was spreading [COVID-19], because I was especially nervous about that.”
Testing program
Earlier this semester, Durand was a close contact to a friend who contracted symptomatic COVID-19, paired with their own experiences upon testing positive for the virus in October, Durand also lost confidence in the College’s asymptomatic testing program.
“I’m less comfortable with their testing policy because I know now that part of their testing policy is after you test positive, you don’t have to test positive for another three months, basically,” Durand said.
According to Durand, they were told by the College’s Health Center that those who test positive are asked not to participate in the testing program for a full 90 days after their first positive test due to the potential for testing positive again even after the contagion period has passed.
“That, I think, is the part about their testing policy that scares me the most. There’s no confirmation of if it was a true positive. There’s not a second chance of making sure,” Durand said. “I didn’t have any symptoms at all. Like not even a cough or a sniffle or a fever. [That was] when I started to get kind of skeptical of it.”
After going home to self-isolate, Durand decided to get tested independently. When they tested again, the results of their rapid COVID-19 test came back negative.
“I decided to take a PCR. [After] the rapid test I was like ‘Oh, my viral load might just be low,’ but then my friends also were like ‘You should take a PCR if you have no symptoms at all’, and so I did independently go and take a PCR,” Durand said.
When the results of their independent PCR test also came back negative, Durand began to doubt whether or not they were truly infected with the virus.
“I tested negative two days after a positive and I was like what’s going on here?” Durand asked.
Soon, they got back into contact with a staff member from Health Services to notify them of the negative test. While, according to Durand, the staff member was unable to answer their questions, they were able to speak with the Health Center’s department head.
“The department had told me that I still had to stay for the duration of my quarantine at my house, even if I tested negative and that I would not have to test when I got back on campus. Even if I tested negative then because the viral load might have just been low at the time that I took my PCR test,” Durand said.
Although they conceded that they may have actually had COVID-19, Durand expressed concerns about being removed from the College’s testing program — particularly if their viral load was so low that it failed to trigger a positive PCR test result a few days after their initial positive test.
“I tested negative three days after [my first positive], I should be able to test [in the College’s testing program] again if I already tested negative from the same exact viral load that tested positive that day,” Durand said.
Another concern that Durand raised was the potential for someone to receive a false positive through the College’s testing program, stop testing on campus, and then contract COVID-19 within the 90-day window that would then go undetected.
“I also think that they should have it as a note on your file that you did test positive once before,” Durand said. “Some people might have heavy symptoms and have definitely had COVID[-19]. For cases like mine, where I had no symptoms and it could have very well been a false positive, they should be testing again after that first positive, because it could have been false.”
Regardless of the College’s guidelines, Durand said that they still plan to continue testing themselves for COVID-19 weekly, outside of the College’s testing program.