The Daily Egyptian SERVING THE SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY COMMUNITY SINCE 1916
WWW.DAILYEGYPTIAN.COM WWW.DAILYEGYPTIAN.COM
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 26, 2020
VOL. 103, ISSUE 29
Editorial: We might not make it to alumni status- SIU’s lack of COVID-19 communication and planning could kill us “We don’t want to write obituaries for our friends, co-workers and teachers when it can be avoided by better policies and more transparency from the administration.” - Daily Egyptian Editorial Board
SIU’s failure to inform students of COVID-19 outbreaks on campus, and its lack of communication, planning and transparency during the pandemic, might mean that some students who are returning to campus this fall may not be alive to graduate. The university exhibits this lack of preparedness by not having a solid testing plan in place, not releasing the locations of active COVID-19 cases, failing to communicate its plans to faculty members and actively encouraging students in Carbondale to come to campus. There is also no clear person in charge of SIU’s COVID-19 plan, and the university’s responses have been confusing. The spokesperson of the university tells us decisions are made at the chancellor level, the chancellor and provost said plans are made by the emergency operating committee
(EOC), DPS Chief Benjamin Newman, who is on the EOC and is SIU’s head emergency management official, told us to contact the School of Medicine for more information about basic pros and cons of temperature checks. There is no accountability. Originally, SIU was not going to inform the public of COVID-19 outbreaks on campus. It cited privacy concerns as the reason and refused to even release general numbers. Although SIU eventually reversed its decision, the university will only provide one weekly generic update. These weekly updates provide only a pseudo-sense of security. The statistics published do not show every positive case on or off campus, as it is optional for students, faculty and staff who test positive for COVID to report that they work at or
attend the university. Currently, the updates do not disclose any locations or the number of students in quarantine. Additionally, anyone not living in Jackson County will not be included in the SIU count if they test positive for the virus and inform the university. If students, faculty and staff are not informed about potential outbreaks on campus, they may not know to get tested. SIU’s administration says that the Jackson County Health Department will handle contact tracing, but how much can we actually trust this considering there is no requirement to report if the sick person is a student, faculty or staff member at SIU? There are too many “what ifs?” and “will theys?” involved with contact tracing. Continued on pg. 3
Daily Egyptian Editorial Board speaks about SIU’s handling of COVID-19 Pg. 3
SIU COVID-19 Response Pg. 1-13