*This story has been updated to reflect that there are confirmed cases of the coronavirus in Idaho now.
With 24-hour news cycle being dominated with live updates on the coronavirus and the University of Idaho testing online-only classes the Monday and Tuesday after spring break, students are talking about COVID-19 — but what are they worried about?
Lauren Perla, a UI sophomore from Seattle said going back home is frightening.
“I had a lot of things planned over break. I was going to go to Comic-Con — that got canceled. I had a tournament at the end of break for frisbee, for the club team here — that got canceled,” Perla said.
Perla said Washington Governor Jay Inslee has announced school closures and many events around Seattle have been shut down.
And if classes go completely online, she’s worried that she won’t be ready for classes her junior year. Perla said online-only is scary for students because if they don’t have laptops, they’ll need the library. But if campus is closed, they might not have access to those computers.
Some students echoed concerns about spreading the virus to family members if they do get sent home.
“I’m more scared to bring it back to my family — more my parents because they’re over 50, almost close to 60, so they’re in that high range and more susceptible to it — the thought of that’s scary to me,” UI freshman Aleea Banda said.
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UI Freshman Alexandra Vega said she wasn’t sure how her classes would look during the test period for online-only — a sentiment shared by Perla and others.
“All I do (in class) is sketching and drawing. Everything’s hands-on; nothing can be done online. So, that’s something that can affect me … I’ve done online learning since my freshman year of high school, and I didn’t like that,” Vega said.
Freshman Emily Fales said she is concerned about her classes going online because of their nature.
Fales said she is an architecture major and isn’t sure what her classes would look like online.
“At first I was like, ‘Oh that’s no big deal,’ but it’s definitely starting to affect lives,” Fales said. We’ve had to be more cautious about how we clean and sneezing and everything about that. It’s just so different. I just wasn’t expecting what happened.”
Kali Nelson can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @kalinelson6