University of Michigan students report confusion over COVID-19 isolation policy
ANN ARBOR, Mich. (CBS DETROIT) - University of Michigan officials sent a campus-wide update to students recently, and its COVID-19 isolation policy has left some students asking questions.
Under the policy, U-M instructs all students in residence halls on the central campus to leave for five days if they test positive.
"Make an isolation plan, which could include relocating to your permanent residence, staying with a nearby relative or friend, or finding a hotel space," reads the U-M guidance.
"I personally wouldn't be willing to do that because I'm not in a position to reasonably pay for a hotel room for five, six days," said student George Parveo.
"I'd expect the University of Michigan to help accommodate students with COVID-19, especially because they have so many international students," said student Ana Torresarpi.
"As a transfer student who doesn't live here, I found that crazy," said student Yassenia Santana from the Dominican Republic. "Because sometimes we don't have money to go to another place. Sometimes, we don't have another family to go to."
School officials said isolation housing is currently "extremely limited."
Last year, the university used 500 beds in its Northwood III buildings on North Campus to house students who tested positive.
Those buildings have since been demolished to build new residence halls.
Professor of medical policy at Stanford, Jay Bhattacharya, slammed the policy on "X," formerly known as Twitter, calling it "cruel." His post has one million views.
"This University of Michigan policy makes no sense," said Bhattacharya. "Asking students to go off campus, arrange for their own hotel room or relative nearby. What do they do if they don't have a relative nearby? From an epidemiological point of view, if you're going to expose people to this virus, there's this big age gradient, and where it's really older people who are the highest risk.
"Why would you tell a student who's positive to go out into the community at large where there's going to be older people rather than having them housed on campus where there's going to be younger people?"
He added that students might not report positive cases if it means they need to leave their dorms.
"A lot of students are going to decide, 'I don't want to test, I don't want to go to the university clinic,'" he said. "It doesn't make any sense from a health policy point of view, from how-you-treat-students point of view, and for an epidemiological point of view. I think it really is a cruel policy."
For its part, university officials shared in a statement with CBS News Detroit that representatives from its Department of Environment, Health & Safety "follow up with every student who reports a positive test to thoroughly explore safe isolation options."