FOREST CITY, Iowa – Waldorf University has been keeping students up to date on the Coronavirus, before they head home for Spring Break. The school’s nurse has been disseminating information about the disease through emails to everyone at the university.
Theater major Kaitlin Rodriguez is one of those students who is making a Spring Break trip.
"The airplane doesn't scare me it's the airport in general, because there's so many people coming in from everywhere. That's what scares me is the airport,” she said.
Rodriguez will be heading back home to Chicago next week, flying into O’Hare International Airport.
"Everybody that is effected is within my county so I'm just kind of like should I be afraid. I don't know? Because it's like there's not a lot of reports that are stabilized out there,” she said.
She knows about the five cases of Coronavirus in Cook County and is a little concerned about it. While visiting her family, she will be working at a theater company downtown, in close proximity with lots of people.
"Hand sanitizer all around, especially with the theater, you have to be like healthy and what not, so hand sanitizer...I have a lot everywhere in my house, in my room, and my backpack. Everywhere,” said Rodriguez.
Sierra Kearns won't be flying home, but instead driving back to Elk River, Minnesota, where she will work as a lifeguard at the YMCA. She says the hot indoor pool could be a perfect breeding ground for disease.
"A lot of the time people will come swimming at the 'Y' all the time, whether they're sick or not. They'll bring their sick kids just to get them exercise,” said Kearns.
While Kearns says she's not a germophobe, she is planning on adding something extra to her usual tools of the trade.
"I’m not one that's normally concerned about getting sick or anything like that but definitely this time. Lifeguards have a fanny pack that has their breathing mask and their gloves and everything. I will be keeping a small bottle of sanitizer in mine,” she said.