Student’s treatment of the pandemic at home and in college are more similar than different.
by Taylor Isenberg
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — At a Pittsburgh Penguins game, two Penn State students enjoyed their spring break by making small-talk and discussing the game.
The two men talked to each other about many things from the differing environment of an NHL game vs. a Penn State hockey game to dissing the Florida Panthers, who the Penguins lost to 4–3.
They also decided to turn to the person sitting next to them and talk about her wearing a mask in PPG Paints Arena that night.
“You know you don’t have to wear a mask right?” said one.
“Yeah there’s no one else here that’s wearing one, there’s not a mandate anymore,” said the other.
“I’m just in the habit of wearing one now,” replied the girl. Causing the two men to let it go with an “ok that’s fair enough.”
This is the mentality of many students, with them just wanting normal college life again and many of their habits seemingly mimic that.
Some students seem to have a more blasé look at masks at this point in the pandemic, much like the two students at the Penguins game. One student, Miranda Schiavone (senior-Mathematics and Economics) doesn’t wear a mask in State College or in New York, where she’s from. “I just look out to see where masks are required,” she said. “Otherwise I don’t keep up to date.”
New York state’s current covid numbers are on a downward trend, with Jan. 8 being the highest number of new cases over the last 90 days. The state lifted their mask requirement in indoor spaces on Feb. 10.
A student want for normalcy in their academic career
With a glance at PSUBarstool’s latest mask update Instagram comments, students seem to be overjoyed at the prospect of no mask requirement in classrooms.
“Yay for things starting to feel normal again,” said one student who seemed excited at the prospect of having a mask-less remaining semester.
“I’m just gonna start today, there’s literally no point in waiting,” said another student in the comments who received 110 likes.
Students everywhere are seemingly taking the lift in stride with very little masks to be seen in common areas like the HUB and the library. Both places were affected by the previous lift, which went into effect the Monday of spring break which left many students confused as the wording was not very specific to where masks were no longer required.
Joseph Banuelos (senior-political science and economics) sees the lifting of the mask mandate in the same light as many others. He is glad that he can “connect with people again” now that the mask mandate has been lifted. “As long as Penn State made an educated decision in lifting the mask mandate, I support it,” he said.
Banuelos is from Clovis, California, which is near Fresno. He treats the pandemic the same in State College as he does back home by making sure to follow the guidelines of his area. Due to the distance from California, he makes sure that he keeps in contact with his family to make sure he’s up to date.
“A lot of the time I would ask my family or friends that still reside there for the most up-to-date information,” he said. “If there were conflicting answers, I tended to Google the local ordinances and news reportings.”
Confused? So are many others
Some students found both the CDC and university somewhat challenging to keep up with in helping their understanding of what they should be doing during the pandemic. “Information has been very inconsistent,” said Miranda Shannon (freshman-molecular biology). “It does affect how I treat COVID because it’s difficult to take guidelines seriously if they’re inconsistent.”
Shannon is from Huntington Beach, California where COVID cases have been following the same trend as much of the rest of the country following the drop-off of the Omicron variant. Orange County had a peak of 25,439 new cases Jan. 9 — compared to 132 new cases March 30.
However, Orange County’s numbers don’t really make a difference to Shannon as she doesn’t go home very often due to the distance, but when she does she generally keeps up to date with her local guidelines.
Shannon isn’t the only student who is feeling the confusion of conflicting guidelines. Marissa Boyer (freshman-elementary education) is from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and follows the relevant mask procedures wherever she goes. She thinks following guidelines can be difficult due to the lack of an encompassing protocol for the whole country. “They’re all different from county to county which is hard,” she said. “That’s why some people don’t take it seriously.”
Boyer makes sure that she wears them in certain places like public transportation — one of the only places that is required by federal mandate. Additionally, she said that the restrictions were tougher in State College than in Alleghany County and that due to her proximity to others, she’s more likely to wear her mask in State College.
Alleghany County is another county with a low transmission rate following some of the highest numbers of new cases in months. On Jan. 6, Alleghany County saw 4,637 new cases, which was their highest amount in the last 90 days. Conversely, on March 30, they had 58 new cases.
Penn State does not help with the confusion over guidelines, with the original lifting of the mask requirement being specific to all places but classrooms and academic spaces, then lead to an all encompassing lift except for places where masks are required by law.
“I think that it was kind of weird to lift the masks on the HUB instead of a classroom because there are so many more people in the HUB,” Ellie Ahern (junior-rehabilitation and human services) said, regarding the first mandate lift. “It’s probably that they don’t want older professors to get COVID but you see 100’s of people at the HUB and like 20 people in classes.”
Ahern is from State College, Pennsylvania. Since she’s a local, she doesn’t really change how she treats the pandemic on campus than in the community any differently, especially considering the borough has seemed to follow with the university in regards to their own mask mandate.
“I always wear one when required and I like to have one on me in case,” she said.
Centre County has a total of 31,143 confirmed COVID cases with 8,577 of those cases being in State College. The county has seen a steady decline of cases with Jan. 20 having the most cases per day since the start of the semester with 370 county wide; the county had eight new cases on March 29. Currently, State College has lifted their indoor masking requirement due to the county being moved to medium risk of transmission, according to the borough’s website.
While the universities language on the mask requirement lifting has been vague and confusing for students, the reasoning behind the lifting follows the rest of the country and federal government. According to Wyatt Dubois, a university spokesperson, the university has been monitoring COVID-19 in conjunction with the COVID-19 Operations control center and experts in medicine, public health, epidemiology, as well as both CDC and Pennsylvania Department of Health recommendations.
The university monitors different factors like test results, vaccination rates, community spread, local, state and national infection rates, and more to help come to its decisions. “Considering all of these factors, and observing no uptick in cases following spring break, University officials determined that they could safely alter the masking and testing requirements at this time,” he said.
The university plans to monitor the pandemic and is prepared to reinstate indoor mask mandates and mandatory testing if needed, according to Dubois.
