COVID-19 Stories: Jumping the Atlantic

What is it like to be caught on the wrong continent during a global pandemic outbreak?

"I just felt safer [in Florida], though the funny is I said this on a Monday, and on a Wednesday I booked my flight back home."

A senior in college at Palm Beach Atlantic University in Florida, Rebecca Keijzerwaard calls Rotterdam, a port city in the Netherlands, home. When news of the COVID-19 outbreak spread, Rebecca made the difficult decision to leave life in Florida and return home to Rotterdam.


"The rate that everything escalated, I just really don't know how to explain it."

Heather Chiles, a PBAU junior, was studying abroad in Italy when the outbreak reached the country. As other schools pulled students from the study abroad program in Florence and the country's activity screeched to a halt around them, Heather and her fellow PBAU students scrambled to find safety.