International students face travel restrictions

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International students face travel restrictions, unclear protocols

Gabriel Borges & Adri Pray

Beacon Staff

Kevin Wang hasn’t visited his family in China since August. If he wants to return, he’ll have to first endure three weeks in quarantine before spending time with them.

“I wanted to go back home,” said the first-year business of creative enterprises major. “But the thing is, in Mainland China, it’s mandatory that people from outside Mainland China have to participate in this super, long quarantine.”

All international travelers entering China are required to isolate in a government-designated hotel for the first 14 days of their stay in the country— regardless of the result of their latest PCR or rapid test—and quarantine at home for another seven days.

China is not the only country to have tightened travel restrictions in response to the latest surge of the COVID-19 pandemic—making for an unhappy tradeoff for many Emersonians with family abroad.

Some international students have been left scrambling for feasible travel options. Others, like Wang, have to decide whether to travel at all, grappling with the choice of either going home only to be quarantined for an unknown number of days, or going much longer without seeing their family and friends.

For Wang, trying to get home would have been almost impossible in the time frame of the college’s winter break, which was just under a month long. Instead, he opted to stay with his roommate in San Francisco.

“Emerson’s winter break isn’t that long, like 20-ish days,” he said. “It’s basically not an option for me to [go home] even if I really want to, so that’s kind of a bummer.”

Ryunosuke Watanabe, a first-year business of creative enterprises major from Osaka, Japan, elected to go home over the break, despite a similar three-day isolation period for international travelers. However, he ran into an unexpected situation when somebody on his flight tested positive for COVID.

“They told me I had two options,” he said. “[Firstly] go home and continue my self-quarantine there, and somebody from the government [would] visit my house every two days to test me wearing this astronaut-like

Courtesy Kevin Wang

suit. My family was really concerned about that.”

When confronted with the other option, though—which would have entailed moving to a government facility to continue his isolation until New Year’s Eve—Wantanabe chose the self-quarantine.

Coming back to Boston also proved challenging. While Watanabe was in Japan, the United States changed its COVID policy for international travelers—now requiring proof of a negative test 24 hours before returning.

“I had to get proof online that I tested negative from a center, [written] in English, and that was hard,” he said. “It’s like finding some clinic here in Boston where they write [results] in Japanese. It’s challenging to find such a thing. I had to do that in Japan, and it really cost a fortune.”

Kyoko Itoh, a first-year visual and media arts major also from Japan, also had someone on her flight home test positive from the initial test done at the airport. Unlike Watanabe, she decided to isolate for three days in the government facility, then went home for the remaining 14 days and allowed government officials to test her at her door.

“I had to wait at the airport for like five or six hours,” she said. “During that time they made me install apps so they could keep track of where I was for the two weeks that I had to quarantine. [The officials would be outside] in a car waiting and would put a little testing kit in front of my door … I’d quickly do the test and then give it to them.”

Itoh’s return to Boston was much easier, she said—though she acknowledged running into difficulties when the college released its updated COVID protocol in order to return to campus.

“One thing I would have appreciated is being a bit more flexible with international students coming back to Boston,” she said. “When I heard it was going to be online, I was contemplating whether I should just stay home for a bit instead of coming back and doing online classes here, because COVID cases are way scarier [in Boston] than in Japan.”

Massachusetts reported 7,918 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, and

Courtesy Pete Sevikul

a seven-day positivity rate of 10.37 percent.

In response to rising cases on-campus, Emerson announced at the beginning of the New Year that it was moving its first week of classes online. Itoh said she felt the decision was made at the last-minute, and feared that indefinite online classes would be especially difficult for international students.

Elena Viennet, a first-year business of creative enterprises major holding American and French citizenship, echoed Itoh’s concerns about the updated policy.

“It was a little bit difficult for me with how late we were told about meeting those boosters [requirements],” she said. “At the same time, the French government mandated by 24th of January, people would not be able to go into restaurants anymore without their boosters.”

Courtesy Kyoko Itoh

As a result of the increased demand in France, Viennet said she had trouble obtaining an appointment for a booster shot before returning to Boston.

“There were no appointments in France to get vaccinated, and the day I had to get on my plane I had to run to the vaccine center,” Viennet said. “I had to wait in line for two hours and I almost missed my plane because I was trying to get my booster before I got back on campus.”

Despite her struggles, Viennet said she felt Emerson’s decision to require boosters was justified.

“I definitely think the vaccination boosters are an important part of actually being able to all live together,” said Viennet.

When the college decided to require students to be fully vaccinated by the beginning of the fall semester, Emerson decided to accept all vaccinations approved by the World Health Organization—not just the three (Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech, and Johnson & Johnson) commercially available in the U.S.—as they recognized “a larger global list of available vaccines.”

“The college knows that not every student in every country has the same access to vaccinations,” said Andrea Popa, director of international student affairs. “Both last fall and summer when we made the policy that students were going to need to be vaccinated, there was [a] discussion about how that would impact international students and accommodations made for students that weren’t able to, or didn’t have access to, the same levels of vaccinations.”

Watanabe said he thought of changing his flight because the strict Japanese isolation-quarantine policy took so much time from him and his family.

“My family and I were thinking of changing my flight to the 15th, so I could wait for some sort of announcement from Emerson if the whole semester would be online, or if we’d be going back to in-person,” Watanabe said. “But I cannot wake up at three in the morning, because of the time difference, to do online [classes].”

Popa said the college made certain accommodations for students that “needed a different path.” She sits on the future planning committee, and her supervisor, Anthony Pinto, sits on

Courtesy Ryunosuke Watanabe

COVID-related committees that discuss updated travel policies for international students.

“What we make sure of is that communication goes both ways,” she said. “We’re asked for input and we also make sure to keep administrators in the loop when there’s something that we think is going to significantly impact travel or disrupt the ability of students to travel freely.”

“We’re still requiring the same end goal for all students,” Popa said. “But we recognize that there are going to be students who need either a different timeline or a little bit of different handling.”

Payton Cavanaugh contributed reporting.

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Students who test positive experience disorganized isolation periods

Abigail Lee

Beacon Staff

With COVID-19 cases on campus reaching their highest levels since the outbreak of the pandemic, a high volume of students have been admitted into Emerson’s on-campus isolation. For some, the college’s communication and isolation protocols have only complicated the situation.

Since Jan. 3, dozens of on-campus students have entered quarantine or isolation. Following new— and controversial—guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the college implemented a five-day isolation period, after which asymptomatic students may be released. However, with COVID-19 disrupting campus life, students in isolation reported communication issues with the college regarding the protocol after testing positive.

Sofia Attaway, a first-year writing, literature and publishing major tested positive on Jan. 9 but didn’t receive instructions on what to do when she got her result back the next day.

“I actually started calling [the Center for Health and Wellness],” said Attaway. “They didn’t call me for maybe like an hour after I got my results back.”

When she reached a CHW staffer, they said they had no instructions available for her and would call her back, prompting her to panic.

“I was like ‘How much later?’” she said. “I need to know today.”

Attaway said she then called the Resident Assistant on duty in the Little Building who directed her to “contact trace” by notifying people she saw recently that she tested positive. These instructions were later confirmed by the Housing and Residential Education Department when they emailed her about moving into an isolation suite.

Although students are usually given 90 minutes for the move-in process, Attaway told the HRE staffer on the phone that she would do it in 10 minutes, given that the process had already been delayed.

“There’s not a set timeline—if there are multiple students testing positive at once, it may take some time to reach all of the students and arrange for their move,” HRE Director Christie Anglade said in email correspondence to The Beacon.

Other students have reported straightforward directions, but a stressful move-in process.

“[The school] was clear,” said Nue Galato Marcos Faltamo, a junior creative writing major. “It was just a lot to ask.”

Faltamo described the isolation experience as generally “numb” because of a sense of crampedness and lack of privacy when sharing a unit with a roommate.

Both Attaway and Faltamo stated that some of the obstacles they faced in isolation were due to insufficient supplies, like not being provided soap in the bathroom or receiving enough water.

“We only got like one bottle of water, maybe two bottles of water a day, and that sucked,” Attaway said. “Especially when there were some people that were feeling kind of sick and you need liquids to recover.”

Anglade noted that students were encouraged to refill the water bottles in the sink “as needed.”

Faltamo also said there was one instance where his food had been mixed-up, despite having informed HRE about his dietary restrictions.

“I have a dietary restriction and they switched up the labels on the bags that they give to me and my roommate,” he said. “I actually picked the bag with food that I literally couldn’t eat.” The meal he was assigned contained pork, which Faltamo does not eat.

Maggie Lu, a junior writing, literature and publishing major, arrived on campus early for her resident’s assistant duties and tested positive Jan. 3. She, like Faltamo, thought the school’s directions for isolation were easy to understand.

“[The isolation protocols] all came in one mass email so it wasn’t really throughout, just at the beginning [when they] contact you,” said Lu. “Like ‘here’s all the stuff you have to know, all the stuff you have to do.’ From there wasn’t really a lot… you’re expected to stay in and just follow the rules.”

Yet, at least one student, a firstyear visual and media arts major who requested anonymity, described a dire situation over winter break brought on by the school’s communication.

After testing positive on Dec. 14, the student described the set of instructions received over the phone and through email as “confusing” and “contradictory.”

Once they were situated in the Emerson Colonial Building, the student said they experienced vomiting and fatigue, which impacted their ability to take care of themselves—a reaction worsened by the isolation meals delivered daily.

In the beginning, the student contacted school officials for contact tracing and temperature updates, but said that outreach slowly waned as time went on.

“By the end when I started to get really sick, no one was really talking to me and asking me if I was okay,” they said.