My institution issued the policy against work-related international travel around 8pm Central European Time. I was at CERN when it happened. I sought guidance from higher-ups at my institution: if you don’t get on the first flight back to the U.S., you can’t come to campus for 14 days after you return. I wasn’t about to book the first flight back to the U.S. at 7am the next morning; I was slated to return anyway just 72 hours later. Besides, it wasn’t possible to check out of the CERN hostel until 7am the next morning; there are no staff on site to handle such requests between 7pm and 7am.
When I returned to the U.S., I stayed home, as per guidance. One potential sticking point with this plan was Jodi: after all, she is also faculty at SMU, so if I self-quarantine at home… is she also barred from coming to campus? This was clarified: so long as I took precautions (hand washing, distancing, taking my temperature twice a day), there was no threat to her being blocked from campus.
Being stuck at home meant having someone cover my classes. My colleagues are heroes, and one of them jumped in to help me out. The time away from SMU afforded me a chance to complete a lot of work: letters of recommendation, moving the rest of my class online, writing code to access a muon detector at SMU for a student project, finishing some simulation work, etc.
I have kept in touch with colleagues by phone and Zoom. I got a lot of editing done on a PhD thesis. I caught up with another PhD student on details of their new research.
And I am so far symptom free. It’s definitely possible I was exposed to COVID-19 while abroad, especially since the first identified case of COVID-19 at CERN was during my trip; but that fact was unknown to my home institution until days after it occurred.
Better safe than sorry. Besides, exile has its uses.
