Carbondale Reporter

Union workers at Southern Illinois University Carbondale’s residence halls have asked the SIU Board of Trustees to close the halls and offer students housing refunds because two university students have been diagnosed with COVID-19, reported The Southern Illinoisan.

The Jackson County Health Department informed the university on March 26 and 28 that two students in the same campus residence hall tested positive for COVID-19. One student possibly contracted the coronavirus from travel to the Chicago area, and the other may have been exposed by contact with another person with COVID-19, according to the university.  The 21 residents in the hall were placed in quarantine.

The food service and university hall workers, represented by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, described how they are concerned and fearful as “frontline workers during the COVID-19 pandemic” in a statement read to the board of trustees during a special meeting March 30. They said they feared contracting the disease and taking it home to their families, according to an audio recording of the meeting. 

“When we received the message that two of our students tested positive, and 21 other students have been quarantined, this news hit us hard,” the workers said in a statement as reported by The Southern Illinoisan. “All these students passed through our dining facility, and likely interacted with us. We are all now at heightened risk for contracting this illness,” the workers said.

The university implemented a plan of grab-and-go–style meals and offered workers N95 masks. The Director of University Housing Jon Shaffer, as reported by The Southern Illinoisan, said the JCHD was monitoring students confined in their rooms. He also said staff was delivering meals and wearing personal protective equipment.