Weeks After The Mask Mandate Was Lifted, Masking Once Again Required In Classrooms

Upper West Side NY

11 April, 2022

3:49 PM

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By Stella Pagkas, Columbia Daily Spectator • April 11, 2022, 4:38 AM BY STELLA PAGKAS Masking will once again be required in Columbia classrooms, University COVID-19 Director Donna Lynne and Senior Executive Vice President Gerald Rosberg announced in an email to affiliates this morning. The mandate will go into effect April 11 and is expected to last for the remainder of the spring semester. The announcement followed Barnard's April 6 decision to reinstate its indoor mask mandate in a variety of communal spaces, including classrooms, libraries, and dining halls. [Read more: After Columbia's dropped mask mandate, some classes choose to keep masks on] Columbia's requirement comes just weeks after the University lifted its mask mandate on March 14, in accordance with its low-risk status. According to the University's COVID-19 monitoring plan, Columbia remains in the low-risk green zone, as at least 95 percent of affiliates are vaccinated, at least 80 percent of affiliates have received the booster shot, there is a low COVID-19 alert level according to the NYC Department of Health, and less than two percent of random surveillance PCR tests on campus are positive. Lynne and Rosberg noted that the University remains in low-risk status in their email, and wrote that the return to masking in classrooms was based on "an abundance of caution" in response to a recent increase in cases on campus and in the city. The most recent Columbia data indicates a 1.46 percent positivity rate among affiliates for the week of March 28, a rate that falls within the green zone. The University also noted that there have been 171 positive cases since March 28 reported through on-campus health services for symptomatic individuals, separate from the surveillance testing program. Barnard, which reports data for its campus surveillance testing program as recent as the week of April 4 to 10, currently records a 4.35 percent positivity rate among affiliates, a rate associated with the yellow zone, or a medium risk of transmission. The new mandate, which requires that students wear non-cloth masks, is limited solely to classrooms; students may continue to forgo masks in residence halls, dining halls, and other communal spaces. This comes as a change from past Columbia Health communication, as a fall update email to the undergraduate community stated that, "To date, contact tracing shows that our academic settings are safe, with no transmissions identified from classroom settings. However, we have seen transmission connected to students socializing unmasked at gatherings in residence halls, birthday celebrations and restaurants and bars." However, the new location-specific masking requirement mirrors mandates at peer institutions. Both Yale University and Cornell University have maintained mask requirements in instructional and classroom settings, while easing restrictions in other environments such as residence halls. Dr. Maureen Miller, a professor of epidemiology at the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, said the new mandate is the right response to the current state of the pandemic. "Reinstating indoor mask-wearing is exactly the kind of pivot this pandemic requires," she wrote in an email to Spectator. "There is still so much we don't know about COVID. If it can be prevented with modest efforts, such as masking with high-quality masks, go for it." Deputy Editor Stella Pagkas can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @stellapagkas. 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.