Beginning next week masks will no longer be required on the majority of the UW campus following the recent board meeting.
At the Feb. 16 UW Board of Trustees meeting, the motion “As of Feb. 21, 2022, masks will be required in all medically related units, UW campus office when requested by office occupant, and in the UW Early Childhood Center,” was passed 9-2. UW public transportation will still be requiring masks as this is a federal mandate.
“It illustrates a shift in what’s happening nationally and around the world in terms of how COVID with the Omnicron variant, which is far more contagious than the previous variants, is impacting us,” President Ed Seidel said.
President Seidel went on to list various campuses across the nation that have relaxed their mask policies, including UC Berkeley, Montana State, and LSU.
In addition to the required locations, the university will continue to provide free KN95 masks and strongly encourage individuals to wear masks in other areas of campus and social distance when possible.
Students and faculty alike will now have the choice to wear a mask, as the previous requirement that masks be worn in all UW classrooms has been removed.
The original recommendation, proposed by Seidel included UW classrooms as a required location. That motion failed with a vote of 6-5.
President Seidel also mentioned how UW has been following CDC guidelines and how that has informed his recommendation.
“We have implemented all of these prevention strategies and, given the current state of affairs, I am comfortable with recommending this new mask policy,” Seidel said.
During the meeting, various board members had expressed the ambiguity of the current mask mandate.
“I find it contradictory that we don’t have the policy in the gymnasium, where the games are,” Trustee Elizabeth Greenwood said.
“If you’re going to spread something, that would be the major place where people would. And then you have a mask policy in the classroom, that just seems like a major contradiction to me.”
David Jones, the Dean of the College of Health Sciences and a member of the Presidential COVID Advisory Group shared his thoughts with the Board.
“The Advisory Group has talked at length about what we want to do moving forward,” Jones said. “We think these recommendations would make the mask policy on campus a lot less ambiguous than it has been.”
“It’s much more focused on being in the classroom, the reason being that the exposure risk is greatest there because of the duration. Students are sitting in class anywhere from 50 minutes to an hour and a half.”
Jones had also mentioned that members of the board had mixed opinions, stating that some members wanted to be rid of masks altogether, while others wanted to continue requiring masks.
ASUW President Hunter Swilling had also brought forward a survey of the UW student body’s concerns with COVID-19 and their vaccination status.
“We had 1,800 respondents and we had a diverse range of respondents,” Swilling said. “63% of students are in favor of removing the mandate.”
“34.9% of students said that they were somewhat or very concerned with contracting COVID-19 on campus, 13.6% said they were neither concerned nor unconcerned.”
Members of the board also expressed their concerns about the treatment of those choosing to wear masks or choosing against them.
“I want to make it clear. There is no excuse for denigrating somebody who chooses to wear a mask,” Trustee Kermit Brown said. “And if that starts going on, I’ll be back with something.”
“There’s also no reason to denigrate people who don’t wear a mask,” Trustee Greenwood said. “I echo that with Trustee Brown. I think it goes both ways sometimes and if it happens either way we need to address it.”
The Board of Trustees will meet again on Mar. 23 through Mar. 25.
