After receiving the dreaded contact tracing call, staff reporters and suitemates freshmen Julia Robbins and Olivia Poolos were sent into quarantine housing for 10 days. In this episode of our Editor’s Note podcast, Multimedia Editor junior Jaden Satenstein explores what it’s like to quarantine on Washington University’s campus.

Christine Watridge | Student Life

Editor’s Note Episode 7: The WU quarantine experience can be found on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or Soundcloud.

Music by Copy Chief JJ Coley

The transcript of the episode can be found below. It has been lightly edited for clarity:

Audio from a video begins to play (0:01-0:23)

JULIA ROBBINS VOICE IN VIDEO: Lunch time!

OTHER VOICE DOWN THE HALL: Happy Thanksgiving!

JULIA ROBBINS VOICE IN VIDEO: Thank you! What a community there is in this hall. Okay, let’s see––oh, you know what, we’re doing it over here. What a large––oh my God. Okay, this is like already too much food. I’m overwhelmed already. Something spilled

JADEN SATENSTEIN (0:29-1:44) That was staff reporter freshman Julia Robbins opening up her Thanksgiving meal while in quarantine.

I’m Multimedia Editor Jaden Satenstein, and you’re listening to Editor’s Note, Student Life’s weekly podcast breaking down our biggest stories with the reporters and editors that covered them.

There are currently 22 Washington University undergraduates with active cases of COVID-19. Still, many more than that have had to go into quarantine, as the University has instituted a contact-tracing program to reduce the spread of the virus. On Nov. 17, Robbins and fellow staff reporters suitemate freshmen Olivia Poolos and Julia Robbins received the call that they’d have to pack a bag and head into isolation.

Thankfully, neither Poolos nor Robbins had tested positive throughout their 10-day stays in the Knight Center, an on-campus hotel and conference center currently being used as quarantine housing. After they wrote about their experiences in Student Life’s Scene section this week, I talked to Poolos and Robbins to learn more about what it’s like to quarantine on the Danforth Campus.

Robbins explained that she and Poolos first realized they’d been exposed when one of their suitemates started to feel sick.

JR (1:45-2:34) We knew we were going to be getting that call, because our roommate, first off, hadn’t been feeling great. And so we were sort of being very careful once we found that out. And then once we found out that she tested positive, we knew that there was sort of this inevitable call coming. And at least from my end of things, I was very sort of––I was trying to see if there was a way out of this situation, maybe going home, leading up to getting that call. And I think getting the call that I had to actually go to quarantine housing in some way made the process, at least that day, sort of easier because I didn’t have to continue trying to figure out if there was something else I could do. There was no way out. And having that definitive answer was sort of good for my mental health, I think.

OLIVIA POOLOS (2:35-3:08) Yeah and I would just add that they didn’t call us for a good amount of time. She got the test late afternoon, and we got called sort of mid-afternoon the next day. So there was, at least for me a moment of, ‘Are they actually going to call us?’ And in the same position as Julia, I think I was actually sort of relieved when they did because I had no idea what I was going to do had we been exposed and not necessarily been contact-traced. We would have to take the next steps, and I had no idea what the next steps would be.

JS (3:09-3:17) I’m so glad that both of you never ended up testing positive and have stayed healthy since. How did you feel throughout the quarantine process knowing you’d possibly been exposed?

VP (3:18-3:42) I actually tested the same day as my roommate and got a negative test that day. But it was nerve-wracking when we did get tested in the quarantine period, because I really, really didn’t want anyone else that I would have had to list as a contact to go in there. So I was not necessarily that worried about myself being sick, but I really didn’t want anyone else to have to go through the process of quarantine.

JR (3:43-4:50) If I had tested positive, I don’t think there was anyone I would have had to contact-trace into quarantine, which I think was sort of good for me to think about. And I think I would urge students to consider that. Consider the fact that if you get contact-traced, or if you get COVID, how many people are you going to end up bringing down with you? Of course, I’m not saying it’s anyone’s fault if they get it, but you do want to be careful because you don’t want to feel like there were people that you should have been masked around that you weren’t. And I think, for the most part, our suite was really careful. And it was lucky that it was only our suite that ended up having to be stuck in isolation and quarantine housing because we were basically only unmasked around each other in close proximity. So that would be my suggestion to other students is to encourage them to think like, how would you feel knowing that you might end up having to make that call to a friend and say, ‘Hey, I think I have to contact-trace you’?

JS (4:51-5:08) Olivia, one of my favorite moments in your recent piece is when you talk about putting on jeans for Thanksgiving to mark the occasion. And, Julia, I loved reading about all the Snapchat vlogs you made to keep your friends in the loop. What else did you two do to maintain a positive mindset throughout the 10 days?

JR (5:09-5:42) I’m a very extroverted person, and I feed off the energy of other people. And knowing that I wouldn’t have that, at least in the same way for 10 days was–– I didn’t like that idea at all. But once I sort of just accepted that this was going to be the case, I ended up feeling relatively good during the most of that period. There were a few hours here and there when I was sort of bored, but I stayed very occupied FaceTiming friends. And so I feel like that really helped my mental health.

VP (5:43- 6:17) Definitely going off what Julia said, FaceTime was key, just having someone to talk to. Even if you weren’t necessarily talking all the time, having someone else’s face and voice in the room made a big difference in battling loneliness, for sure. I also really leaned on music. And I just sort of had a speaker and just, if I wasn’t talking to someone, I was either playing music or playing a podcast. Just not having silence in the room was huge for me in sort of battling loneliness and passing time.

JS (6:18-6:47) Both Robbins and Poolos noted that the University informed them of resources they could access, such as mental health hotlines and Habif Health & Wellness Center doctors. Every day, they had to fill out an online survey with a symptoms checklist. The form said that if they didn’t do so in a timely manner, members of the Washington University Police Department would be called to perform wellness checks.

While Poolos and Robbins said they always remembered to submit their surveys promptly, Robbins noted that a concern she raised in the form was never addressed.

JR (6:48-7:50) One of the questions every single day was, ‘What’s your temperature?’ And I had called the first day and said, ‘Oh, I don’t have a thermometer. Could you please bring me one?’And they did, but I didn’t get it in time because I was on the phone with someone and then I forgot to get it or something, and then it was gone. And then every single day after that I wrote in the temperature slot, like where you would put in your numerical value of your hopefully not-febrile self, I wrote, ‘Can I please have a thermometer?’ and they never brought it, so that was sort of a strange thing that happened. I don’t know how they missed that because I wrote it literally every single day, and you’d think if they were checking it they would have seen it… But I didn’t feel at all febrile. Like if I had I probably would have called again. I mean, I don’t know, I felt like they should have brought it to me if I was telling them every single day that I needed it, but it ended up being okay.

JS (7:51-7:53) Going off of that, are there any ways you think the University could improve the quarantine experience?

VP (7:54-8:34) I was very carefully rationing my meal points before I went into quarantine. And they automatically charge you $25 a day. And they give you a very decent amount of food. Like I think if you were a football player, you’d be satisfied with the amount of food you got. And so I ended up having to purchase more meal points at the end of it all. And that was sort of my one pet peeve about how it was handled, because I really didn’t have money to spare in that category. And, you know, I obviously didn’t have a choice of going into quarantine. So I sort of wish that there was some negotiation or something where I just didn’t feel like I had to pay to go into quarantine.

JS (8:35-8:37) What would you say to other students who have to go into quarantine?

VP (8:38-9:14) Let people know so that they know to reach out to you, or reach out to people and say, ‘I’m in quarantine. Do you want to talk?’ Because that was seriously a lifesaver, having friends call and Zoom in and check in every day. And the second thing is just not to be too hard on yourself. This is easier said than done. But there were definitely some days where I just couldn’t focus on work or was feeling lonely and didn’t want to just be productive all the time. And I think taking some time to just relax or find something distracting or not be productive every second of every day is really important.

JR (9:15-9:44) Yeah, I was incredibly unproductive while in quarantine, but I’m just happy I made it through with my head basically intact. So, exactly what Via said. Don’t be hard on yourself. It’s hard enough doing school during a pandemic with a general lack of stimulation or sort of changes to your daily routine, but being stuck in one room by yourself just exacerbates that issue, and, yeah, definitely go easy on yourself.

JS (9:51-9:58) Editor’s Note will be back next week to break down another developing story. For Student Life Media, I’m Jaden Satenstein.