The University of Florida recently sent out an email on September 4th reminding students and faculty to continue to remain vigilant throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. 

While it is clear that UF has made some great steps to ensure safety such as requiring masks at all times when inside campus facilities, providing gator care kits that contain masks and hand sanitizer and giving infected students space to safely quarantine, there has been one issue that has come up for many students going into quarantine: transportation. 

The University of Florida at this time is not offering any official transportation to its quarantine sites. According to the experience of one student who had to go into quarantine this past weekend, the student was told to drive themselves if they had a vehicle. The student explained they did not bring a vehicle with them to campus. The student was then instructed to have a friend or an Uber/Lyft take them to the site. The student explained that while these are options, it was irresponsible and potentially dangerous to be in a confined space without any extra safety precautions put in place. 

Along with this, another student who made an online post about their experience said that while in the car with an Uber driver they saw a car seat in the back of the vehicle. Seeing this showed how many people they could potentially expose. 

A possible solution could be using the UF campus connectors or other shuttle busses that would solely be for the transportation of students going into quarantine. They could have enhanced safety measures such as using plexiglass divisions and extra personal protection equipment (PPE) for the student and driver. These vehicles would then be properly sanitized after each trip. With campus connectors/shuttle busses being much larger than a standard car, this would allow for better physical distancing. Also, by using a transportation system that is facilitated through the university, it would be easier to conduct contact tracing since the identity of drivers and students on the busses could be logged. This would be much more difficult to do should students continue to use rideshare services like Uber or Lyft. 

The idea of having students use golf carts provided by UF has also been suggested. In the state of Florida anyone over the age of 14 can operate a golf cart with a top speed of 20-25 mph. A student could drive a golf cart alone with their items while being accompanied by UF personnel who will be in another cart/vehicle. They could accompany the student to their quarantine site and when the student is done moving in, the cart can be properly sanitized. This process would be repeated again for the next student. While I do not have the knowledge of the exact golf cart policies on campus, I believe this is a worthwhile suggestion. 

This purpose of this petition is not to downplay the great work UF has done so far, but to bring awareness to a problem that needs a solution. 

As students attempting to keep our fellow gators and family safe, we ask that the University of Florida provide safe transportation for students and drivers to all quarantine sites and testing locations while under quarantine.