Emerson College’s student newspaper since 1947 • berkeleybeacon.com
Thursday, Feb. 11, 2021 • Volume 74, Issue 16
@berkeleybeacon // @beaconupdate
As vaccine rollout stumbles along, Emerson community gets in line
Photo Courtesy Jesse Battilana Students walking down Boylston Street. Hongyui Liu / Beacon Staff
Administrators blame sudden rise in virus cases on student behaviors Andrew Brinker & Diti Kohli Beacon Staff Top Emerson officials pinned the recent surge of positive COVID-19 tests on students’ lax behaviors Saturday, despite repeatedly touting the strength of the safety measures they have in place to keep the virus at bay. In emails and interviews, administrators acknowledged for the first time that the virus is spreading between students due to repeated violations of social distancing and mask-wearing protocols. But officials’ faith in the college’s long-standing COVID-19 restrictions, which have only been narrowly tightened since statewide infection numbers rose and prominent virus variants emerged late last year, is unwavering. (Emerson’s fall positive tests came almost entirely from isolated instances of spread off campus, contact
tracing efforts indicated.) Since Jan. 11, 60 community members have tested positive for the virus, tying the number of positives that accumulated through the entirety of the fall semester. Just 10 had tested positive at this point in the fall. “This is serious, and there’s really no margin for error,” Vice President and Dean for Campus Life Jim Hoppe wrote in an email to students Saturday. “Higher positivity rates around the U.S., the influx of more contagious virus strains, and the cold weather heighten the need to observe safety guidelines. This is a reality, not a ‘what if.’” The spate of positive test results prompted two firm emails from the college, but no decision to bear down on existing guidelines like capacity limits or temporarily shift to online classes. (36 of the 60 positive tests reported by
the college this semester came in the last two weeks.) Instead, administrators doubled down on their assurance in the current protocols—and lambasted students for violating restrictions. “If your lack of compliance is because you don’t want to follow the rules, then being in Flex classes this spring is not the right choice for you,” Hoppe wrote. “Let’s cut to the chase and make it easy for you to leave campus now before you spoil it for everyone else.” It’s an abrupt shift from the optimistic community messages sent last fall and in the first weeks of the spring semester. When cases on campus spiked ahead of Thanksgiving, administrators praised students for adhering to protocols, though there were notable instances of students gathering on and off campus. Virus, Pg. 3
Dana Gerber Beacon Staff
As the COVID-19 vaccine rollout continues to plod along in the state and nation, some members of the Emerson community have gotten one or both of the doses of the two authorized U.S. vaccines, marking the beginning of the end of a pandemic that has upended nearly every aspect of college life. Most states’ vaccines are still limited to health care workers, adults over a certain age, or certain essential workers. However, some members of the Emerson community, by virtue of their jobs, locations, or loopholes, have been able to receive the life-saving dosages. Emerson College Police Department officers and Center for Health and Wellness staff received COVID-19 vaccines as part of Phase One of the Massachusetts Vaccination plan. The rest of the general Emerson community is planned to follow in Phase Three, which is expected to occur between April and June. Status of vaccine distribution
Emerson alumni team up to adapt ‘The Fact of a Body’ for HBO series Campbell Parish Beacon Staff CONTENT WARNING: This article contains mention of sexual violence and murder. Alum and writer Alex Marzano-Lesnevich’s ‘09 book The Fact of a Body has been picked up by fellow alum Jermaiah Zagar ’03 to be adapted into a HBO Television series. The book, a memoir and an autobiography, follows Marzano-Lesnevich’s own childhood intertwined with a story about a murderer. Marzano-Lesnevich received their MFA from Emerson and published their book in 2017 after working on it for nearly a decade, they said in an interview with The Beacon. “My publisher likes to say that the book was a decade in the making. I like to say that it was three years in the avoiding and seven years in the writing,” Marzano-Lesnevich said.
In 2003, Marzano-Lesnevich was studying at Harvard Law School, where they interned at a death penalty defense firm in New Orleans over the summer. Marzano-Lesnevich and other interns learned of the Ricky Langley case after being shown his confession tape. Langley was on parole after prior child-molestation convictions when he murdered his six-year-old neighbor, Jeremy Guillory, by strangulation, then hid the body in his closet during the search for the missing child. Langley was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to the death penalty; the sentence was upheld on appeal. In his third trial in 2003, however, he was acquitted of first-degree murder, convicted of second-degree murder, and sentenced to life in prison in 2009. HBO, Pg. 7
Quarantined students describe abysmal food conditions, allergen violations Dana Gerber Beacon Staff
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A nut-containing meal delivered to a student in isolation. / Photo Courtesy Sean Facey
Photo Courtesy Alex Marzano-Lesnevich
Five students in quarantine and isolation housing in the Paramount residence hall, cut off from many of the college’s services and completely dependent on twice-a-day meal delivery to their door to eat, have reported abysmal and sometimes life-threatening menus. On Feb. 9, when senior Sean Facey woke up for his fifth day of quarantine in Paramount, he was greeted with a food pack labeled “nut-free.” The pack contained a breakfast sandwich, lunch sandwich, a salad, Honey Nut Cheerios, and an orange. The sports communication major, who has a severe peanut and tree nut allergy, could eat only the orange—ev-
erything else was pre-packaged by York Street Market, which makes its food in the same facility as nuts. Though he immediately called Food Services and a replacement food pack was delivered around 11 a.m., the experience was troubling, he said. “I’m not a very picky guy for the most part—I’ll eat whatever is given to me as long as it doesn’t kill me,” Facey said in a Zoom interview from quarantine. “It’s just kind of stunning to me that a lot of this stuff keeps slipping through the cracks and that there was actually a time where I was able to just theoretically not have any food available for me to eat.” Facey went into quarantine on Monday, Feb. 5, after his friend junior Jeremy Guerin tested positive.
varies state by state. In Massachusetts, which is currently in Phase Two of its three-phase plan, residents over the age of 75 are eligible to book appointments to get vaccinated, following the inoculation of health care workers, employees in long-term care facilities, and first responders. In their vaccination report card released Feb. 9, The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School gave Massachusetts an F grade in vaccinations per capita and vaccinations as percent of doses available, making the state 42nd and 44th in the nation, respectively. As of Feb. 10, out of the more than four million adults Governor Charlie Baker said would receive vaccines, 950,515 have received at least one dose, according to state data. The rollout has been eased by the influx of appointments available after the opening of four mass vaccination sites, according to The Boston Globe. There are currently over 140 active vaccination sites throughout the state, according to the state’s website, though the volume of available vaccines varies. For health care workers, the vaccine is the signal of the light at the end of the tunnel after nearly a year of strained resources and heightened precautions. Jesse Battilana, a nurse practitioner who works at the Center for Health and Wellness, received the vaccine in Phase One at the UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester, where she worked before coming to Emerson in January. “I showed up a couple minutes before my appointment,” she said. “I went through a series of screening questions with the nurse that administered it, and then waited for 15 minutes afterwards, just so they could monitor and make sure there weren’t any adverse effects.” Vaccine, Pg. 2 Facey, Guerin, and Guerin’s three suitemates, senior Anton Lee (who later also tested positive), and juniors Justin Voegelin and Jeff Pratt, packed up their belongings in their Colonial Residence Hall suites to go to Paramount for isolation and quarantine. Isolation is for those who are “known or reasonably known to be infected” with COVID-19. Quarantine is for those who may have been exposed to the virus, but are not showing symptoms. Each of the students described the substandard food delivered to them twice daily; a breakfast and lunch pack in the morning, and a dinner in the early evening. Christie Anglade, director of the office of housing and residential education, said students also receive a “snack pack” delivered twice a week. Students in Paramount have a mini fridge and microwave. Lee, who was also placed in quarantine on Jan. 24 and released Feb. 2 before returning just three days later, said he then once received an “old sandwich” for lunch, eating only the meat he peeled off the bread. Quarantine, Pg. 3
120
positive COVID-19 tests
.18%
positivity rate *Accumulated from 2020-2021 school year