When a Harvard student tests positive for COVID-19, they are required to isolate for ten days in one of the University’s designated housing facilities. Food, water, medical supplies, and toiletries are regularly delivered to their door (although one student received dish soap instead of shampoo). What these students can’t have, however, is the thing that gave them the virus in the first place—human interaction. As a matter of public health, proper isolation periods are necessary to control the spread of COVID-19. But less discussed is the question of mental health. It’s clear that social isolation protects other students from getting sick, but how is it affecting the very students who sequester?
Overwhelming evidence indicates that solitude correlates with higher levels of anxiety and depression, explained Harvard History of Science Professor Elizabeth Lunbeck. However, individuals’ reactions can vary widely. “Some people are able to deal quite well with isolation,” said Lunbeck. “For other people, it’s almost intolerable.”
Olivia Proctor ’23 spent ten days in a room at the Harvard Square Hotel after receiving a positive COVID-19 test result. Experiencing only mild symptoms, she filled her time facetiming friends, getting ahead on schoolwork, and watching Netflix. “I got accustomed to doing nothing relatively fast, which is concerning,” Proctor said.
Brad Campbell ’24 also adjusted easily to the low demands of life in COVID-19 isolation. Living in the Cronkhite Center, a graduate housing building used as an additional isolation facility, Campbell spent his time reading a few books, completing school work, and attending classes over Zoom.
“It was clear that there was to be no socializing: I received a few emails noting that some students had been hanging out in their rooms together and that doing so would send us straight to the Ad Board,” he said. To maintain a sense of normalcy, he did bodyweight workouts in his room and facetimed friends and family. “Having those virtual connections made the whole process much easier than it would have been in a pre-digital age,” he said.
However, Campbell didn’t mind the social isolation granted to him by a positive COVID-19 test. “I felt relatively indifferent to the whole situation,” he said. “I was, in a strange way, happy with the slowdown of life after a crazy first few weeks on campus; I was glad to be able to refocus myself and set goals for the upcoming year.”
But for John Mark Ozaeta ’24, isolation did not provide such respite. His ten days in the Harvard Square Hotel provoked “a slow descent into some sort of mental anguish,” he said. “It didn’t help that my hotel room window faced away from the sun, so I received no real direct sunlight for 8 days.”
Exacerbating Ozaeta’s frustration was the fact that he never actually contracted COVID-19. Being in close contact with someone who tested positive and then developing a sore throat necessitated a ten-day stay in the Hotel, Ozaeta’s resident dean said, even after he tested negative for the virus.
He spent his time doing jump squats, schoolwork, and watching SNL on his phone. “My screen time went from 2 hours a day to 10-12 hours. There was little to do but wait to get out,” Ozaeta said.
Isabella Lenzo ’22 also felt emotionally cut off while isolating at Cronkhite, adding to the physical symptoms of her COVID-19 infection. Similar to Ozaeta, Lenzo struggled with remaining completely indoors during her stay. “I would try to open my window and fit my whole upper body to feel fresh air,” she said, as she was not allowed to walk outside to Cronkhite’s courtyard. “I felt like I was locked up.” To avoid being completely sedentary, Lenzo tried to walk up and down the hallway outside her room each day, although this was prohibited.
She was, however, able to engage in some social interactions during her isolation. On a couple of occasions, Lenzo and the other COVID-19-positive students would congregate in the halls or bump into each other in their shared hallway bathrooms. “I was beyond grateful for this amenity because I heard the horror stories at the Harvard Square hotel [where] the rooms include in-suite bathrooms,” Lenzo said. Normally an amenity, now a private bathroom meant one less excuse to escape. “There was one day where I didn’t see anyone for a day and half, and I was in such an anxious, depressive, and somber mood. The minute I hung out with some of my isolation friends, I felt infinitely better,” Lenzo said.
An individual’s reaction to solitude depends on their characterological preparedness, Lunbeck explained. Does being alone feel familiar and comfortable to them, or alien and distressing? For those who suffer from social anxiety, forced isolation may actually feel like a relief rather than a burden. “Being alone is not just a state of isolation, but a state in which you are able to be with yourself and to feel stable, fully realized as a person in that state,” Lunbeck said.
But for many college students, pandemic-induced disruptions to their social lives have resulted in broader emotional stresses. Even for those who haven’t contracted COVID-19, students have had to quarantine and limit their socialization throughout the past year and a half.
“We won’t know for years what the full effects of it are, but the immediate effect psychologists are finding is higher levels of anxiety and depression,” said Lunbeck. “The need for mental health services is especially high among college students, and not surprisingly.”
Lenzo also stressed the need for such services. Each day she was at Cronkhite, nurses came to her room to check her temperature and oxygen levels, and a Harvard University Health Services nurse called to ask about her physical health. But this routine did not include any mention of mental health. To Lenzo, this felt like an oversight.
Should less apparent health struggles be overlooked just because they can’t be measured by a Color test kit?
Professor Lunbeck currently teaches HISTSCI 1780: Psychopathologies of Modern Life, which explores how the stresses of modern life have led to greater psychic distress and mental illness, such as social anxiety and isolation.
Mary Julia Koch ’23 (editorinchief@harvard.independent.com) is thrilled to be out of her own COVID-19 isolation.