Protestors Ask Princeton U. Share COVID Resources With Community

PRINCETON, NJ — A group of protestors including students and residents, gathered at Princeton University’s FitzRandolph Gate on Feb. 13, to demand the university expand its COVID-19 services to the community. But the university said it was unable to extend their resources as their infrastructure was limited.

According to a flyer circulated during the protest, the demonstrators had five specific demands from the university:

• Expand free COVID-19 testing to the residents of Princeton.
• Provide free coronavirus vaccination to the residents of Princeton and neighboring municipalities.
• Provide equal access to testing and other health benefits to contract workers.
• Help fund and support the municipal contact tracing program.
• Make all major university COVID-19 related health and safety decisions democratic.

The demonstration began at 4 p.m. with around 200 protestors. Those who participated in the demonstration included members from Princeton Mutual Aid (PMA), Princeton Graduate Student Union, Princeton Anti-Austerity Coalition, Divest Princeton and Unidad Latina en Accion, NJ, a group working for the rights of immigrant workers.

“We want to get the university to meet some demands to provide COVID resources to the entire surrounding area, where lots of people who work in Princeton or come into contact with others here,” said Linda McNulty Perez, member of Princeton Mutual Aid.

“We believe the larger Princeton community will be benefitted if Princeton University shared their resources, that’s part of the whole push,” she said

PMA said that their demands have a precedence. The University of California, Davis provides free COVID-19 testing, masks and quarantine housing to Davis residents. The University of Wisconsin, River Falls has expanded COVID-19 testing to the larger community and Tuffs University, in collaboration with Medford and Somerville Schools is providing COVID-19 testing to K-12 students, teachers and staff.

(Pics: Christine Zizzi, Princeton Mutual Aid)

“So those are the precedents that we're looking at and hoping Princeton University can also turn towards that, and let's see what sort of justice they can do for this town and its community members,” said McNulty Perez.

Anjelica Garcia, a Princeton resident for 15 years, was at the protest because she needs the “help.”

Her husband who works in landscaping contracted COVID-19 and then her 11-month-old baby got sick.

“I tried taking my children to CVS for COVID-19 testing. But it was quite far away, and I don’t have the means to get there. If the university were to provide us at least testing and eventually the vaccine, it will be of great help,” she said.

Garcia, who has a dry cleaning job, is currently unemployed and so is her husband.

“I participated in the protest because I want to represent people and families like mine who couldn’t be there. I want to support any effort to stop the spread of COVID so that we can all go back to work,” she said.

In an email statement to Patch, university spokesperson Ayana Gibbs said the university’s “paramount responsibility” was towards the safety of its students and staff.

“Princeton University is not a hospital, a health care provider, or a commercial clinical lab. And unlike many of its peers, it does not have a medical school, or a school of public health,” she said.

Gibbs said the university focuses on teaching and research and created a clinical testing lab “to pursue its fundamental mission despite the pandemic.” She said the university was making a difference during the pandemic through its research and teaching, and “not by becoming a health care provider.”

The university said it could not provide healthcare resources to tens of thousands of people in the community, and assuming that it could, would only obscure all its contributions and efforts during the pandemic.

Their limited medical infrastructure prevented them from providing COVID-19 testing to the larger community, the university said.

The growing demands for testing within the campus community has “put a tremendous strain” on university staff assisting with the program, Gibbs said.

“The fact that the University cannot offer testing services to the general public does not mean there is not a benefit to the region. The testing program serves our campus community... and bolsters the ongoing, constant contact we have with our counterparts in the Municipality and County,” she said.

With regard to vaccine distribution, the university said it did not receive any vaccine and does not know when it will. However, they’ve been helping the Municipality of Princeton store the vaccines in their cold storage facility.

Princeton University said it was helping in hosting the community vaccine clinics because they have the space.

Meanwhile, PMA said these vaccine distribution partnerships should become "standard practice" to allow for increased local access to vaccination. Garcia, who lost her health insurance, is hoping the university comes forward to help people like her.

“My husband too lost his insurance. I’m asking the university for their support in COVID testing so people like me get back to a normal life.”

Thank you for reading. Have a correction or news tip? Email sarah.salvadore@patch.com

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