Columbia University Updates COVID-19 Restrictions On Gatherings

Upper West Side NY

03 October, 2021

1:09 PM

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Columbia Daily Spectator BY ZACHARY SCHERMELE SEPTEMBER 30, 2021The University eased its COVID-19 restrictions on undergraduate dorms and gatherings on Thursday, allowing each student at least one guest and raising the limit on indoor crowds to 25, while maintaining its random 25 percent testing rate for vaccinated students. The University updated its COVID-19 restrictions on undergraduate dorms and gatherings on Thursday, allowing each student one guest and raising the limit on indoor gatherings to 25, while maintaining weekly surveillance testing of a 25 percent random sample of vaccinated students. The guest must be an individual affiliated with the University with an active Columbia ID and a Green Pass. Guests may only visit their host's dorm and the number of students in any room cannot exceed double its occupancy, according to a University email. Indoor social and extracurricular gatherings have returned to the low risk—or yellow—level, meaning that up to 25 students can congregate together indoors if they are all masked. The new guidance is a reversal from a policy put in place the week of Sept. 17 that restricted access for all undergraduates to residence halls other than their own, which resulted from a rise in COVID-19 cases in the undergraduate student population. According to an email from Dean of Undergraduate Student Life Cristen Kromm, contact tracing and testing has indicated that the main point of spread has been unmasked gatherings in off-campus settings. For the week of Sept. 20, Columbia Health reported 117 positive test results. For the week of Sept. 13, when the restrictions were put in place, 112 cases were reported, a 100 percent increase from the week prior. Although the spike caused the initial restrictions, some faculty and students have criticized the University's lack of mandatory weekly testing of all students as providing an unclear picture about the state of COVID-19 on campus. Students and faculty tested outside of Columbia's campus must self-report positive results, and although the University conducts regular wastewater testing, those results are not made publicly available. Unvaccinated students must be tested weekly. During the week of Sept. 20, as much as 99.7 percent of the University's more than 40,000 population was in compliance with the vaccine mandate. The University's risk assessment remains in the low risk, or yellow, category, the same level as when students first returned to campus en masse. Deputy News Editor Zach Schermele can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @zachschermele. Founded in 1877, the Columbia Daily Spectator is the independent undergraduate newspaper of Columbia University, serving thousands of readers in Morningside Heights, West Harlem, and beyond. Read more at columbiaspectator.com and donate here.