As cases rise, college students take COVID-19 prevention into their own hands

Earlier this fall, Occidental College junior Luigi Maruani laid in bed anxious and angry, swiping through his phone. His 75-year-old father had just contracted the coronavirus, and Maruani felt the federal government wasn’t responding to the pandemic with enough urgency.

A post in a Facebook group for students living off-campus caught his eye. 

“We’ve heard some rumblings and want to be clear about infections within our small community,” senior Avani Johnson wrote. “If you end up testing positive for COVID-19, please just be transparent about it and let the community know so we can figure out if anyone in our houses may have been in contact with you and we can contain the spread. Embarrassment is not an excuse for lack of communication!” 

Maruani jumped into action, creating a Google Doc where students living in off-campus houses could anonymously share test results, and posting it to the group.

“I just thought it would be a good idea to sort of hold each other accountable and then be safe,”  he recounted.

While images of maskless, partying coeds have gone viral this semester, other students are working to keep themselves and their peers safe from COVID-19 — holding workshops on virus prevention, signing up to clean and monitor campus buildings, and shaming their peers who break the rules. With coronavirus cases spiking nationwide, and campuses serving as hotspots for transmission — 6,531 COVID-19 cases have been confirmed at 78 California colleges as of Nov. 19, according to data from The New York Times — these student-led efforts could become even more important as schools plan for the spring. 

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