Yalies Begin 14-Day Dorm Quarantines

Ananya Asthana was about to head to the room where — fingers crossed — she’ll be living for the next year.

First, though, she would need to get tested for Covid-19. Then, she would have to lug two sacks full of food up to the bedroom she has to herself, where she’d remain for up to 48 hours before receiving an initial negative test result.

In 2020, this is what Yale college move-in looks like.

Asthana is one of over 1,900 students moving into Yale dorms over the course of the next few weeks. (Around 1,600 enrolled students are living off-campus, and another 1,700 are enrolling remotely, according to Yale.)

Most students are moving in at staggered times this week. The process has been spread out to minimize the density of visitors coming to the city.

When Asthana moved in on Tuesday afternoon for her first year at Yale college, her family helped her unload her boxes and suitcases onto the Elm Street sidewalk outside the Hopper College dormitory.

They didn’t lug her things up a narrow staircase to her room; they weren’t allowed to step past the residential college gate to get inside. Instead, they left Asthana’s belongings on the sidewalk, where a team of movers carried them to her room.

Soon, after saying goodbye to her family, Asthana would get tested for Covid. Then she’d pick up two sacks of food: two breakfasts, two lunches, two dinners, and a handful of snacks to last her for the next 48 hours.

After the 48-hour period inside her room, Asthana, who comes from the Chicago area, won’t be able to leave her dormitory complex for another 12 days, in keeping with the state-mandated two-week quarantine for travelers to Connecticut from certain states.

Even after the quarantine period, her first year of college will be a year of social distancing, at least for the time being. For the fall semester, students on campus are required to wear masks everywhere outside of their suites. Each suite is allowed to have one guest per resident of the suite over at any given time, as long as everyone wears masks and remains six feet apart from one another. No parties, nor other gatherings of more than 10 people, are allowed. Each student is permitted one maskless guest at a time inside their room.

Enrolled students both on and off campus are required to get tested for Covid twice a week through a Yale Health system. The college is preparing to track key card swipes for the sake of contact tracing should a student test positive.

Between Aug. 17 and Aug. 23, no students have tested positive, according to a dashboard on Yale’s website. Two staff members have tested positive, as well as six ​“dependents” and one retiree.

Amid the new normal, Asthana said she’s feeling excited to make the best of the year — and ​“really lucky” to be able to attend school in person at all. Many of her friends were unable to live in their universities’ dorms this year.

She said she trusts the health precautions that Yale is taking to prevent the spread of Covid within the dorms.

When it comes to pandemic safety, ​“the only school I have faith in is Yale,” she said, citing the university’s twice-weekly testing for students. Based on interactions online, her peers seem to be taking social distancing seriously, she added.

Move-in hasn’t gone smoothly for everyone, particularly some older students who had left campus for Spring break the semester before, only to learn that they couldn’t come back, not even to retrieve their belongings.

A variety of moving companies packed up students’ belongings over the spring, as students opted to have their things either shipped to an outside address or moved to their rooms.

One first-year counselor (also known as a ​“froco”) moved in on Friday expecting to finally reunite with his possessions. Instead, he found an empty dorm room.

Several days into his two-week quarantine period, he still doesn’t have any of his belongings. He said he has heard that other students have been missing items, too.

The froco, a college senior who requested anonymity, is in charge of helping a small group of first-year students through their adjustment to college. Normally, the job entails providing social and academic support to the new students, mediating conflicts, and breaking up unregistered parties. That last part, he hopes, won’t be an issue this year.

He’s only interacted with his group of first-years so far over text and Zoom. He and other frocos have tried to build community through online games and regular group meetings.

To brighten up the first two weeks, one residential college is streaming a student-run magic show. Another is running a ​“Fourteen Days of Quarantine” program, giving a gift per day of quarantine for every student. (The first gift was a make-your-own ​“yarn llama” kit.)

“The most common metaphor I’ve heard used by the faculty and leadership is ​‘We’re building the plane as we’re flying it,’” said the first-year counselor.

Still, he said he feels safe living on campus. ​“The more I see it, the more I’m confident that while there will be things that are uncomfortable, most things are well-managed and well thought out.”

Quentin Vergara, a first-year moving into the Silliman College dormitory on Tuesday, agreed that Yale’s safety measures appear to be thorough enough.

He said he’s ​“super excited” for college — even for the quarantine period inside his dorm.

“I really hope we stay for the fall — and maybe even come back for the spring,” he said.