Coronavirus impacts the Annie Wright Community by YoungSeo Jo and Sofia Guerra, originally published 2/28/20 Annie Wright Schools are impacted in numerous ways by the implications of the COVID-19 coronavirus. With 113 Upper School students living in the dorms, several of whom are international students from mainland China, the school is taking numerous precautionary measures, some of them controversial, to prioritize the community’s health and safety. The highly infectious coronavirus originated in Wuhan Province, China in early 2020. Since then, the coronavirus has been declared a global emergency by the World Health Organization, inciting concern internationally. As of today, there are 84,174 people infected, concentrated mostly in China with 78,832 people infected.
Quarantine policies Currently, Annie Wright Schools will quarantine any community member who travels to a high risk area, for 14 days. Christian Sullivan, Annie Wright Head of Schools, also requests that people wishing to remain on campus do not come in close contact with anyone who traveled to a high risk area. “With students and adults living in such close proximity on the campus, we are unusually vulnerable to the spread of viruses in general, and safety is of course our priority,” he said in a letter sent out to the community on February 26. At the end of January, five senior Chinese students, none of whom are from Wuhan, traveled back to their hometowns in mainland China to celebrate Lunar New Year. Annie Wright Schools quarantined the five students for a week on January 23, prior to any recommendation for quarantine by the Pierce County Department of Health. The five students, who currently live in the dorms at the school, expressed disappointment with the lack of organization and financial support during this period. Helen Wei, one of the five students, said, “Even though this experience, particularly
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The CDC now recommends wearing masks in public places where keeping a social distance is difficult, such as in grocery stores. Photo by Sofia Guerra.
how the school decided to handle this problem, rendered us disappointed, we were glad that us being quarantined for a week was able to alleviate potential fear and panic in the community.” In light of this statement and students’ frustration, Sullivan expressed regret to the affected students and reimbursed them for their expenses during their time in quarantine. On February 12, a number of students traveled to Tokyo, Japan, as a part of the art after-school activity. At the time of the students’ return on February 18, Japan had 69 infected patients and one death. The returning students and teachers were not quarantined. In a letter sent out to the community on February 18, Sullivan explained his decision. “This is in line with the State Department advice on travel to Japan which remains at the lowest level… Japan has the second most cases of coronavirus world-wide [at the time], but the scale of the situation in Japan is very small compared to the situation in Hubei province, and China in general,” he said. Wei expressed frustration with this administrative decision and noted the difference in how students traveling from China and Japan were handled. In a letter sent out to the community on February 26, Sullivan acknowledged Wei’s frustrations. “I believe that these decisions were correct, but I acknowledge that it was very difficult for those five students, and I sincerely wish that I had a better solution for quarantining them away from campus,” he said.
INKWELL | MAY 2020
