Ohio State, Auburn, under these mandatory face coverings.
Getty Images, Maskot
The Delta variant moves quickly through communities in the United States, and that has a huge impact on how colleges prepare to bring students back for the fall semester.
The Tompkins County Health Department, New York State, reported this week that eight students at Ithaca College tested positive for COVID-19. None of them currently live on campus.
With a vaccine mandate already in place, Ithaca officials say they will be relying on a 17-month-old proven prevention measure that they hope will prevent outbreaks when students return: masks for everyone, including the full one Vaccinated. Cornell University, only minutes away, has also imposed its own mask requirement.
“Given the surge in the number of new positive COVID-19 cases reported both nationally and here in Tompkins County in recent days, Ithaca College is introducing a mandatory face-covering policy for all indoor campus areas for all individuals with immediate effect. “Ithaca officials wrote in a letter to staff, faculty and students.
In the past few days, dozens of colleges and universities have reintroduced mask guidelines. These include an expected increase in institutions from blue states, including large ones like the University of Minnesota and Minnesota State University, as well as several smaller ones, including a handful of community colleges in Illinois. But surprising mandates have also been implemented in red states, for example at Ohio State University, the University of Tennessee and Kansas State University. Three institutions in Alabama – Alabama State University, Auburn University, University of Alabama-Birmingham – have also brought masks.
It is unclear whether these are allowed to stand still. The University of South Carolina had announced a mask mandate only to have the attorney general stop it. The university is only allowed to require face covering in its health facilities and in campus traffic.
Only a few days after he said he was “disappointed that this” [mask] Measures are necessary because we had hoped for different circumstances when we reunited, ”said the interim president of the university, Harris Pastides, back.
“I deeply respect the right of all individuals to make their own decisions, and I respect the role of our federal and state governments in running our university,” Pastisdes wrote in a statement to the community. “I remain determined to encourage all Gamecocks to wear face-covering and get vaccinated for the benefit of themselves and others.”
Pastides has also encouraged students to get vaccinated in a state where 18- to 24-year-olds are severely delayed in taking doses of COVID.
There’s also a chasm in another Republican-run state, Florida, where mask bans have hit K-12 schools and could hit colleges as well. Seminole State College and Rollins College both introduced mask requirements this week. Another institution, Pensacola State College, has given up its mandate and chosen to “encourage” the population to get vaccinated. Florida recorded the highest single-day total since the pandemic began last Friday, with more than 21,000 positive cases. But that didn’t stop Governor Ron DeSantis from keeping the state open. Reports of large gatherings of maskless, partying college students in bars in popular Delray Beach circulated on social media this past weekend. No institutions there – and very few in conservative states – have vaccine mandates.
In Arkansas, three state universities (the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas Tech University, and Southern Arkansas University) are trying to lift the state mask ban “to make the health and safety of all colleges in the state a priority.”
