Thread by @TimeForMars

PLEASE RETWEET.

I am a student at Penn State University Park Campus. Despite what they say, the school is not keeping its students, employees, or community safe. They need to stop in-person classes immediately.

Thread. 1/?

My zip code is the worst in PA in terms of number of cases, and charts of national growth rates had us in the top 5 worst zip codes in the country. A few weeks before school started, Governor Tom Wolf moved my county to the green zone. When cases spiked, we did not go back.

There are nearly 1400 confirmed COVID-19 cases on campus, making it over 1000 per 100,000 people. The local community expected this kind of spike, but Penn State decided to bring students back anyway. 3/?

October 1st is an important date to Penn State: That's when tuition becomes non-refundable. The goal for the administration is to keep us in-person until the students cannot demand money back. Some students are anticipating this a voluntarily leaving campus for home. 4/?

I have 6 classes this semester. 3 of them are fully online. 2 others are on campus 1 day/week at most, though protocols for social distancing are still not safe enough. The last class of that 6 is on campus every class, so 3 days/week. Some weeks, that's 4/5 days each week.

So, say a classmate tests positive for COVID, either in a random asymptomatic test, an on-demand symptom tests, or a contact-tracing test. What happens? Well, we don't really know... 6/?

The contact tracing starts with their classes. Unless they have a "highly experiential" class, no one in that class is notified or called in for a test. Again, if it's judged that a class was correctly distanced NO ONE IN THE CLASS IS TOLD OR TESTED. 7/?

In addition to the on-demand tests, that don't happen often enough, there are frequent random tests. In some cases, students waited for days for results to arrive, if they arrived at all. 8/?

So what if you test positive? Asymptomatic or not, you have to isolate. 9/?

Students that live on campus are sent to campus isolation housing. Reportedly, isolation housing sucks. Guidelines for returning to class are 10-14 days, I think? The information is horribly hard to find.

However, if you live off-campus (like me) and you test positive, I'm sorry, but you're out of luck. You still have to isolate, but you're not provided anything you might need. 11/?

Lots of the isolated off-campus students don't know how they're going to get their next meal. Student services used to make phone calls to the isolated off-campus students, but they quickly became overwhelmed. 12/?

In fact, Penn State faculty were asked to volunteer for 8-hour shifts delivering boxes of food to isolated students because the health support is spread so thin. 13/?

So, you test positive and can't go to class. It's up to you to tell your professor, and your professor can't ask anything about your health. Don't get me wrong, privacy laws are very important. But unless the student reaches out, profs won't be told their student had COVID. 14/?

This is my hometown as well as my school. My parents live here, as well as some older relatives. We knew this was coming, and I moved out of my house to avoid getting my family sick. Moving out to protect your family is not a decision a 19 year old should have to make. 15/?

This pandemic, if nothing is done, will kill parts of my community, possibly including my friends, relatives, and parents. 16/?

Their blood will be on the hands of President Eric Barron, Provost Nick Jones, and Head of Student Affairs Damon Sims, among other members of the university administration. 17/?

When the semester started, the university rolled out an initiative called Mask Up or Pack Up, saying they would send the students home if social distancing guidelines were not followed. The guidelines were not followed, and yet we are still here. 18/?

Instead of making a safe decision and moving to online-only, Penn State decided to begin practicing football for next month. The players will be tested every day, but students in classes with positively-tested individuals won't even be notified. Again, THEY'RE STARTING FOOTBALL.

Penn State MUST move to online-only, for the safety of our town, students, and employees. The sooner they send us home, the less likely we are to bring the virus to our home communities. 20/?

Penn State has prioritized money over the lives of the students who attend the school and pay their precious tuition. They are letting us die and we can't let it happen. Penn State is killing its students. Get your heads out of your wallets and SEND US HOME. #WeAre /End.