Covid’s New Breeding Ground

How Students Living in the Cube are Coping

Moving to university is hard enough as it is. Packing up, moving out of home, the pressure of making friends as well as starting school. On top of all that, we’re in the middle of our nation’s biggest Covid-19 outbreak to date. All of this is made worse by actually catching Covid-19 or becoming a close contact and having to isolate.

You would think being in a managed facility – like a hall of residence – would be the best place to isolate, right? Well, that may not be the case. I interviewed one of the many apartments in Wellington’s ‘Cube’ that are in isolation about the support they’ve received during their 10-day lockdown.

I interviewed Francesca, Tamilini, Rose, and Gemma, all second year Massey Students living in the Cube. The flat went into isolation after Gemma started experiencing symptoms and then received a positive test result. When asked how they reacted when they found out they had to isolate, the flats main response was “full of shock”. Gemma, the first to contract Covid-19 mostly felt bad for her flatmates, saying that she was “in disbelief that she caught the virus after having avoided it for the past two years”.

So how does going into isolation at the Cube actually work? The flat I talked to called the RA phone, and were told there was a QR code on the door of the flat that they could scan to get more information. But as Rose described, “It didn’t feel like enough information for the gravity of the situation, it felt like we were the guinea pigs they were testing things out on.”

Information isn’t the only part of isolation students are concerned about. Day-to-day activities like getting groceries and doing laundry have been a challenge. When Gemma’s flat entered isolation, the only elevator for the entire building was broken. “Our friends had to walk up nine flights of stairs to bring us our groceries,” Rose explained. “I guess the RAs are trying to reduce their contact,” Tamilini said.

“If you don’t have friends in the Cube then you can’t really do anything, but the RAs did make us biscuits. I guess that was nice.” When their friends couldn’t bring groceries up, they had to ask in their house group chat and hope that someone could.

They also weren’t told how they were going to be able to do their laundry. “It didn’t really encourage good hygiene; you don’t want to be sitting in clothes and bed sheets you’ve coughed all over,” Gemma said.

For the flat, it seemed as that none of these scenarios were planned for. “We had to yell at people coming up the stairs to stay back because we might have Covid-19. With no real procedures in place within the halls, I can see why they’re becoming super spreaders.”

To finish off, here’s a little piece of advice from the flat to anyone who may go into isolation in the future.

1. Stock up on fruit and veg.

2. Make sure you have friends who can help out, even if they’re just people on your floor to bring up your groceries and mail.