Jenny Waldock, an Education junior studying in Ho Chi Minh City,Vietnam, will leave her study-abroad program and return to theUnited States on April 27 because of concerns over the Severe AcuteRespiratory Syndrome, she wrote in an e-mail Thursday to TheDaily.
She is limited to traveling within a 100-kilometer radius of HoChi Minh City because of the virus, she wrote. A three-week trip toNorth Vietnam was canceled, and her home-stay with a family had tobe cut short.
NU Provost Lawrence Dumas declared March 20 that no studentcould begin a study-abroad program in a country where a U.S.Department of State travel warning is in effect. In response, NUcanceled all affiliated programs to China, Hong Kong and Vietnamfor Summer and Fall quarters. About 35 students had signed up forthe summer program in Beijing.
Three Northwestern students studying in Hong Kong have alreadyleft, and Allison Cameron, a student in Nanjing, China, ispreparing to return from fear of SARS, said Bill Anthony, directorof the Study Abroad Office.
He said his office has been in regular contact with students ineffected countries since the outbreak of SARS, which has claimed165 lives from its almost 3,400 worldwide cases. After Dumas setthe new policy, the office has been encouraging students,particularly those in China, to return to the United States.
“We strongly recommended it,” Anthony said. “It was toughwording, but what we did not do was threaten them with thewithdrawal of financial aid and academic credits.”
A lack of information on how the virus is transmitted alsoprevented the Study Abroad Office from demanding that studentsreturn, Anthony said. SARS originally was thought to be easilypassed on in airplanes, but now it is believed to be spread only byclose human contact.
Anthony’s main concern involves a Chinese government policy toquarantine people who might have SARS, he said.
“There is no access to such patients for 10 days, and we canwell imagine how scary and disorienting that experience would be,”he said.
C.J. Willey arrived in Nanjing to begin his winter/springsemester in the coastal city near Shanghai before the outbreak ofSARS.
But in the three and a half months since his arrival, China andHong Kong have become hotbeds for the disease, accounting for morethan 80 percent of cases.
Willey, a Weinberg junior, will stay but wrote that he closelywatches the news — Nanjing is equidistant from Beijing and HongKong.
“I evaluate the situation daily, knowing that my days are likelynumbered and that I had better make the most of the time I have inthis beautiful country,” Willey wrote in an e-mail.
The threat of quarantine is Willey’s biggest fear, he wrote.
“The government has declared that all suspected SARS cases willgo to designated hospitals, and in Nanjing that is Nanjing No. 2Hospital,” he wrote. “I spent a night in a hospital here once andit was horrible. I’ve heard that No. 2 is comparably worse. That isscary.”
In China, the media has kept the population from panicking,Willey said.
“Today’s China Daily has an article, ‘The spread of SARS hasbeen contained,'” he wrote. “We are getting a lot of realinformation, misinformation and non-information from many differentsources. And it’s not easy to differentiate one from theother.”
Despite all possibilities, Willey wrote he will remain there aslong as he can.
“I’ll go either when logistically it appears I don’t haveanother choice,” he wrote, “or when it gets to the point that Ifeel like I’m living in fear.”
