This is the second instalment of CHMA’s COVID Q&A recap. Part one is here.
On Monday evening the Tantramar COVID-19 Task Force hosted a town hall panel to answer questions from the community about COVID-19 preparations in Sackville.
During the hour-long session, host and Task Force co-chair Carolle de Ste Croix shared questions from the Tantramar community.
One question focussed on the tracking and monitoring of off-campus students.
CAROLLE DE STE-CROIX:
“We received a lot of information about plans for monitoring on campus students. But what about the off campus students? They are the students that are living on amongst us in our neighborhoods, does the university for instance, have the physical addresses of off campus students? And how are they being monitored?”
Gloria Jollymore, MtA Vice-President of University Advancement, first addressed the issue of contact data for off campus students, which has been collected at the Welcome Centre.
GLORIA JOLLYMORE:
“One of the great purposes of the Welcome Centre was to capture as much address and telephone contact information as we possibly can, should we need it in the case of contact tracing.”
Jollymore said the university has built a database of contact information for both on and off campus students, to be used to communicate around a variety of items and issues.
When it comes to monitoring, Jollymore says that while Mount Allison is assisting with monitoring of on-campus students, the monitoring for off campus students is being handled by New Brunswick Public Health.
Since students staying in residence all arrive at the same time and live together, Jollymore says the university offered to work with Public Health to do monitoring on campus.
GLORIA JOLLYMORE:
“In the case of the off campus students, they’ve been coming in at different times over the course of the summer, and they come into many different locations across the town. So the monitoring of those entrants to New Brunswick has been left with Public Health. And they’ve undertaken it in the way that they would undertake monitoring of self isolating entrants regardless of where they have ended up in the province.”
But Jollymore added that although the monitoring is being left up to Public Health, Mount Allison staff are doing wellness checks by phone.
GLORIA JOLLYMORE:
“We’ve had staff working on 24-7 to just reach out to off-campus students just to check in and make sure that that everything is going, you know, as well as it possibly can in it the self-isolation.”
What if there’s another lockdown?
Task Force co-chair Carolle de Ste-Croix introduced another question, this time asking the proverbial, “what if…?”
CAROLLE DE STE-CROIX:
“What will happen to Mount Allison students if the province declares another lockdown due to a second COVID wave? Will students be sent home like what happened in March? Will they be able to finish their their courses off? Will they be able to finish their offline courses?”
Mount A president Jean-Paul Boudreau answered confidently that Mount Allison was prepared for a number of eventualities, including a complete lockdown.
He stressed that the situation now is unlike that of the first lockdown in March.
JEAN-PAUL BOUDREAU:
“We are now in a different state with regards to our preparedness for a change with regards to COVID. We can manage a variety of opening phases. As you noticed, we opened the campus in a phased approach. We will continue to do a phased approach going forward. But of course that includes a complete lockdown, should it come to that.
Again, if we were required to move to a complete lockdown, to the spirit of the question, we are prepared, of course, to ensure that safe return of our students back to home, as we did back in March, of course. We are very proud of that very quick response to getting our students back home safely.
And yes, our faculty are also prepared to move to emergency remote teaching, so that students can complete their studies remotely without compromising their education at Mount Allison University. Mount Allison, as we all know, is a very student-centred University. We take care of our students. We have an unstinting support for their health and academic welfare.”
Mount Allison’s COVID Response Plan, published on their website, outlines various measures the university may use to combat an outbreak.
The plan says if there are one or more confirmed cases of COVID-19 on campus, the University will follow the direction of the regional medical officer of health, with the potential to place all students on isolation precautions and bring in wider testing at the university.
The university has set aside one residence, Hunton House, to accommodate small numbers of students who might need to isolate on campus. Hunton has 30 separate washrooms, so could accommodate 30 students following strict self-isolation protocols.
The university also says that in the event of a confirmed case, it will immediately close off affected residences or wings to others, unless deemed essential.
Supports for students in self-isolation will be similar to those in place this past August for arrivals from outside the Atlantic Bubble.
If off-campus students need to isolate during the year, they will do so in their own accommodation, but have support from the Mount Allison Wellness Centre and the students’ union.
This is the second instalment of CHMA’s COVID Q&A recap. To see part one, click on this link. Or, listen to the entire one-hour session right here:
