Inside Quarantine: Port Jeff Native Shares her Experience Being Pulled from Italy into Isolation

In little more than a week, Port Jefferson native Devin Rotunno’s life has been turned upside down, and though the coronavirus pandemic has impacted many, for students learning overseas, recent events have been dramatic.

On Tuesday, March 3, Rotunno was in Florence, Italy, studying fashion among the great Renaissance-era domed cathedrals and aged orange-tile roofed buildings. By late Saturday, March 7, she was back in the U.S., holed up in a small dorm room in Stony Brook University’s Southampton campus. In quarantine, she’s only allowed to go outside her room to go to the bathroom or to pick up her food from the lobby. She is on a floor with two other students, but none are allowed out together at the same time. When out, they must wear a mask at all times.

“If you asked me last week, Tuesday, if I would be leaving, I would have literally thought you were crazy,” she said.

Still, as the days drag by, the 19-year old has had to find ways to fill the time — a full 14 days of quarantine before she’s finally out March 21. Experts have said COVID-19 has a two-week gestation period, and she is among well over 150 people in quarantine in Suffolk County, both mandatory and voluntary.

As a first-year student at the Fashion Institute of Technology, being taught at the Polimoda International Institute of Fashion Design and Marketing in Florence had been an incredible experience. On March 3, Italy had yet to institute its nationwide shutdown, and Rotunno said she had seen people still living their lives as they had just a month before, however with a few more people were being cautious by wearing masks and gloves.

Late Wednesday, March 4, that all changed. Students studying abroad received emails from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security telling them they had to leave and return to the U.S. They were given a day to pack their things and either book flights themselves or take a flight guaranteed by the federal government. When the freshman college student received the news, she was working on a midterm project.

“Our program director — she knew how much we wanted to stay — she was figuring out online classes for us,” Rotunno said.

The students in her class handed in all their assignments, even if they weren’t fully done.

The students boarded a Delta flight to John F. Kennedy International Airport, just around 70 kids from SUNY schools together on the flight. When they landed, instead of being taken through the airport proper, they were led to a hanger where two buses awaited them. The majority went on one bus to SUNY Brockport. The fashion student went on the other bus, where students who said they were self-quarantining were dropped off at Stony Brook University’s main campus, while the rest were taken to the Southampton location, arriving there Saturday, March 7 at 11 p.m.

She now lives in a suite with two people living in separate dorms across the hall from her. She speaks with them on a group text, but she doesn’t have much communication with them. Most of the time the way she knows they’re there is from hearing them move in their rooms or their feet as they walk down the hall.

“I was joking around with my friends — I was sending them pictures saying, ‘Look, I’m in the Hamptons,’ sending them a picture of the street and cars going by,” she said.

For now, she’s catching up on some Netflix shows and doing work for all her classes which are soon to be hosted online. While some of her basic lectures will likely translate easily enough, some of her classes, which have required draping and sewing, will have to be largely abstracted.

It’s been hard to watch things go on from the inside of quarantine. She said friends had already booked flights to visit her in Florence for spring break, but those plans have been somewhat quashed. When President Donald Trump (R) announced a 30-day travel ban to all European countries save Great Britain and Ireland, she herself panicked as not all her stuff from Italy has yet arrived, but she said she’s received word the rest of her items should be arriving soon.

Despite the initial confusion and anger of being pulled out of Italy with barely enough time to make sure her things were packed and hand in last-minute assignments, she said she understands why this is necessary.

“When everything was on lockdown, it was the right decision,” she said.