On Monday, Aug. 28, Meredith’s Residence Life team announced changes to the longstanding quarantine policy for students living in residence halls and the Oaks apartments. Since the start of the Coronavirus pandemic in 2020, Meredith’s Residence Life team noted, Meredith has offered students living on campus access to “on-campus quarantine/isolation spaces” to stay in while they’re contagiously sick. This has helped prevent the spread of the Coronavirus and other communicable diseases on campus. Since then, the CDC has declared the Coronavirus pandemic has entered the endemic phase. As a result, Residence Life’s guidelines for sick residential students have changed.
Under the new policy, sick students will be advised to go home to quarantine when sick. If students are unable to go home, students are able to stay in their residence room or apartment until the student is no longer contagious. Dean of Students and interim head of Residence Life, Ann Gleason, shared that the Residence Life team made this decision over the summer as part of Meredith’s move back to pre-pandemic policies and procedures. When asked how the Residence Life team anticipated this decision impacting the roommates of sick students, Dean Gleason said that the fact that many residents are in single rooms this semester “informed this decision to return to pre-COVID policies'' and that students with concerns about living with an ill roommate should contact their Residence Director (RD) or Apartment Manager (AM). Residence Life has found spare rooms for well students to stay in while their roommates are recovering if that’s what they would prefer. Dean Gleason emphasized that Residence Life is reestablishing its pre-COVID “flu buddy” system, where friends of a sick student may “use a quarantining student’s Camcard to swipe into Belk Dining Hall to pick up a ‘to go’ box and deliver it to the ill student.”
This policy will remain active for the remainder of the 2023-24 academic year and onwards, unless or until public health officials suggest otherwise.
By Clary Taylor, News Editor