Wow, I would be furious if I had a child at that school. I really think I would withdraw him or her.
I would too. Wow.
Can we spell C-L-A-S-S A-C-T-I-O-N L-A-W-S-U-I-T, students?
Heartbroken for that family, and all those whose children were sickened.
We had mold as well. Can’t take 1960s buildings with 1980s ventilation systems and use in 2019. We also had mumps going around. Word to the wise – skip the University health center and go to urgent care or hospital. Universities are ill equipped to deal with these kinds of medical outbreaks.
This is horrifying
Can’t wait for UMD to start writing checks. The behavior of the administration is unforgivable.
Wow. That was heartbreaking to read.
Awful.
Paging Georgetown. Fix your dorms. https://www.thehoya.com/students-raise-concern-mold-dorms/
The UMD health center actually dxed the Adenovirus whereas Howard County health center, where Olivia’s parents took her did not. There is a lot of blame to share here.
A lot of the older buildings have mold. I’ve seen it a lot. The off campus housing where my kids lived were far worse in terms of sanitary provisions.
Adenovirus is not listed as one of the conditions that is supposed to getvan alert. The young woman who died had other health issues. The mold alone should have been a no deal situation for her. Mold is not required to be removed in real estate. It’s something you do because it raises flags and health concerns but isn’t like radon, lead or other things that have to be mitigated or at least signed off on.
UMD-CP has had a severe college crunch for some years now. One of my kids was accepted but not given housing till spring term which was a no deal for him. It’s clear where this flagship school should be focusing reno work and improvements.
Indiana University, in Bloomington, also had/has a severe mold problem.
My god, what a tragedy…
Having now read all of that article, I feel even worse. How awful.
My daughter is also a freshman at UMD. She was in a dorm without air conditioning which was a seeming nightmare in the early weeks of the school year as temps were in the high 90s. But it turned out that because there was no a/c there was also no mold.
This student’s death is a tragedy and there is no way to compensate her family for her loss. I can certainly understand why the parents feel the need to raise awareness of how the mold and adenovirus situation on campus was handled. I think the issue of the university’s handling of the mold in the dorms needs to be assessed separately from their handling of the adenovirus although it’s certainly possible that there was an underlying culture of what some could see as lack of transparency with students and parents that affected how both were handled.
I’m not sure how successful a class action lawsuit related to the adenovirus would be given the indications in this article that the university did NOT violate any CDC guidelines or protocols and that two external doctors reviewed their handling of this issue and did not find any notable shortcomings.
A class action lawsuit about the mold would be interesting to consider but I’m not sure that would result in any success either. The school did make what many could consider reasonable attempts to remediate. And certainly there is plenty of data to support that the weather conditions that fall were not typical.
If it is true that they consulted public health officials, who said it was not necessary to inform the public about the adenovirus, then they should be held harmless for not telling students about the adenovirus. I can’t blame the university for consulting experts and then doing what the experts say to do.
I blame them. What was the downside of informing the students? It wouldn’t produce mass hysteria but would provide valuable information. The school received a call in early November about a hospitalized student and to be on the lookout for more. Why? Because it’s contagious and already landed one kid in the hospital. Hiding behind “consulting public health officials” won’t protect them from being sued. Just imagine how a jury would respond. They’ll settle before putting all these facts and emotions on display for public consumption.
If I were on the jury, I would expect the people to have consulted experts and followed their guidelines, and I would be deeply contemptuous of post-facto explanations.
The downside of issuing unnecessary public health advisories is that people will ignore necessary ones.
This isn’t being broadcast to the public at large. Students live in ridiculously dense and confined housing. Alerting them to the presence of a possibly problematic and contagious virus would have been prudent. Maybe many would have ignored it but those who knew to be concerned bc of their personal medical history would have benefited.
In addition, the conditions in the dorms were environmentally problematic to begin with. There appeared to be a number of students suffering from respiratory ailments, fevers, sore throats etc…that were not resolving as expected. Those factors should have been considered as well. 20/20 hindsight is admittedly easier but I feel they should have handled it differently. More information is usually better IMHO. Will be interesting to see how it plays out legally.
I read the article but I don’t recall any reference to an active lawsuit. Did I miss that? Or are you just assuming that there will eventually be a lawsuit?
It is tragic and vulnerable that college residential halls fall through the crack in terms of health standards of indoor air quality that we wouldnt tolerate under other residential circumstances.
The thing is, mold is not on the danger list. It did not cause the adenovirus. Adenovirus is very common.
I hope Olivia’s family and friends get through to the UMD administration that those buildings need to be upgraded. With what college costs, there is no reason why they had to let things go as they did.
It’s not just MD with old, moldy, dirty facilities. Just came back from graduation of my youngest and his dorms look worse than the NYC projects. He lived off campus last year, and he’s the only one if my kids who had an improvement in his own place.