Many face issue with the past, present, and future treatment of DU’s high-risk students

By: Sydney Dondes

The University of Denver’s last Care Pod, a Covid-19 testing center, located by the Ritchie Center, displays signage marking its Mar., 18 shutdown. [Photo by Sydney Dondes]

At 19, Jill Cummins would make the decision to not return to the University of Denver campus for what would be her second year of college. This choice was made following a life-altering diagnosis of Philadelphia chromosome-positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

Cummins’ form of blood cancer is caused by a piece of chromosome 9 breaking off and attaching to chromosome 22, creating a fusion gene called BCR-ABL 1 which produces tyrosine kinase, a protein, which causes leukemia cells to grow and divide exponentially. The decision was a wise one as campuses nationwide saw on average a 9% uptick in Covid cases per a medRxiv report.

Cummins’ year away from campus has provided her with unique insight as an immunocompromised student who has experienced life at DU before Covid-19, during its wake, and as it shifts towards an “endemic” approach. From professors to classmates Cummins has had a wide range of responses in regards to understanding her situation.

“Some [professors] will ask for repeated doctor’s notes even though that’s already part of my accommodation,” Cummins said, speaking on a lack of compassion and understanding of some professors she has had.

A lack of accessibility and understanding from schools nationwide is not new. At most institutions virtual learning did not lead to the in person implementation of practices and procedures that allow students who are immunocompromised to safely continue their education with some requests for hybrid learning models continuing to be rejected, even as new variants and surges emerge according to SAGE journals’ A Path towards true inclusion: Disabled students and higher education in America.

“In all honesty, we’re all just kind of here trying to get an education,” Cummins said exasperatedly. “If you’re not really respecting someone’s health or their disability, are you really respecting their ability to get an education as well?”

Cummins believes that DU’s decisions in Covid-19 protocol throughout the course of the pandemic largely didn’t follow the interest of students but instead focused on alumni and administration wanting life to return back to normal.

Maya Beesley, a third year student who was the first trained student-intern for DU’s Covid-19 collection sites, also found flaws within the university’s response to Covid-19.

Besides her internship position, Beesley would go onto supervise various testing sites, the entirety of testing at the Ricks Center for Education, and worked in the lab when testing volumes were particularly high on campus.

“I definitely think that there were some cases where DU could have been more consistent with what they were telling people,” Beesley said, citing her inside knowledge. “I think that DU should have done a better job communicating information [about testing and isolation protocols]  to individuals on campus to stop misinformation.”

Beesley noted that the HCC and now-dissolved Covid Response team were separate entities from the testing sites and labs.

“[They needed to be] more consistent with how we were letting people out of isolation or keeping them in isolation, which I think wasn’t necessarily a fault at the lab level,” Beesley said. “But more so at the HCC and Covid coordinators level because they ultimately were the ones that were making those decisions despite the lab’s results being like, ‘No, don’t do that.’” 

Beesley is also a believer of improving educational measures about the spread of viruses. From Covid-19 to the flu and pink eye “people are contracting viruses and things like that have a rapid transmission rate and they have no idea how or why it spreads and what the effect actually is.”

Like Beesley, Cummins is of the opinion that sensitivity and awareness training towards individuals with different abilities to control their health would be beneficial for students as the school will be eliminating just about all Covid-19 protocols come spring quarter.

“It’s like the same way that DU makes us do the Alcohol Edu and Sex Edu stuff before you come in [to campus],” Cummins started. “I think a lot of people are coming into a new environment where people are going to have different disabilities than what they were used to from their hometowns. 

This suggested means of bringing awareness to high-risk and immunocompromised students has the potential to work. Just how DU students must complete “Intervene” an interactive course through DU’s health promotion team, Thrive, a similar mode; with peer interaction is a promising solution to further lifting protocols.

Per BMC Primary Care, it is shown that “peer-to-peer models” to educate vulnerable populations have been successful in some health areas, such as the prevention of infectious diseases. This method is shown to increase empathy, strengthen social capital, and create a sense of equality; the model’s ability in creating effective communication, empathy, and a sense of relaxation has made the World Health Organization deem it an effective method for changing people’s behavior. 

“Another thing is probably knowing how to tell when your body is sick because a lot of people think that they could power through and that they’re invincible but our bodies do need to catch a break more often than not; being able to tell that and also being able to self-treat [is important].”

Liberty Tyus, a third year student whose life is affected by Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) also sees the benefit in this training idea but remains skeptical that “people are going to just tip-tap through it.”

Despite her pessimism, she believes the implementation of such a training would start a much needed dialogue about the high-risk students on campus.

“I feel like everyone was emphasizing like, ‘You’re going to take this home to your grandparents for Thanksgiving’ and it’s like, ‘Okay, we’ll you’re also going to take it home to your suitemates.’” Tyus said. “I don’t know that [high-risk students] were really in mind to begin with if I’m being honest.”

Tyus recalls people finding ways to go out and break Covid-19 policies, something that she could even think to do.

“Everyone was most certainly like, figure out ways to go out and party and socialize,” Tyus said. “I couldn’t or I would die.”

Many students, like Tyus, had increased anxiety around Covid-19. This was especially so for the high-risk demographic of immunocompromised individuals as they showed exacerbated levels of anxiety per SAGE Journal’s A Qualitative Study of COVID-19 Distress in University Students.

But as life returns closer to what it was before Covid-19’s discovery on Nov., 17 2019 or the fateful Mar., 13 that many mark as the start of Covid-19 “lockdown”, DU is adjusting, too.

In an email sent out to students, faculty, and administration, Eric Hartman, DU’s executive director of enterprise risk management, and Therese Mashak, DU’s public health project manager of enterprise risk management, informed community members that the university’s last standing Care Pod would be closing, university provided isolation would cease to exist, and if you are not a residential student, you are no longer required to report a positive Covid-19 test effective Mar. 18.

This major change and new lack of protocol has many high-risk students worried.

“[I’m] not loving that,” Tyus said in response to the university’s freshly released protocol. “I feel like just acknowledging [the need to protect its immunocompromised or high-risk students] would be great.”