COVID Update and Increased Use of Compliance Badges
From Dr. Jean Morrison, University Provost and Chief Academic Officer
and Gary Nicksa, Senior Vice President for Operations
It is vitally important for all members of our community to comply with all of the public health protocols we have put in place to keep our community safe from COVID-19. Although we have seen low rates of positive tests so far, our COVID dashboard shows a worrisome increase in the daily numbers of cases among our student body, as well as our staff, over the last week.
Although the number of cases per day is still relatively low, our growing concern is also driven by the number of cases in Massachusetts and lower than targeted compliance with the mandatory requirement for testing and daily symptom attestation. An analysis of our cases shows a critically important driver for the increasing infection rate is the number of social gatherings (on and off campus), as well as personal travel and off-campus visits with family and friends where participants do not adhere to physical distancing and wearing face masks.
For us to remain successful at keeping the infection rate low, it is very important for each of us to:
- Adhere to the testing program, get tested according to the established testing frequencies – review the requirements for your assigned testing category online at Back2BU;
- Submit a daily symptom attestation through Boston University Healthway each day, whether you are on campus or not, if you are in testing category 1, 2, or 3;
- Avoid gatherings in small, indoor spaces and adhere to physical distancing and wearing face coverings when with others; and,
- Follow the other protocols, policies, and guidance in place on campus.
To emphasize the importance of these rules, beginning on Thursday, October 22, a green daily attestation badge/email will be required to enter our dining halls, the George Sherman Union, and several other public spaces on our campus. We hope this will be a reminder to everyone of the importance of daily symptom attestation and testing for keeping our campus safe.
It is the responsibility of everyone in our community to minimize the spread of COVID-19. We encourage faculty to participate in this effort by asking students to show their green badges as they enter classrooms. Similarly, we are asking managers of student-facing services to put into place a practice of asking students to show green badges when entering a department’s space. This practice has been successfully implemented in the Dean of Students’ Office, the Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground, and the Fitness and Recreation Center. Additional guidance on how to make this request and respond to any student concerns can be found on the Back2BU Faculty Support website.
We started the year with protocols in place to protect our in-person learning environment and for our being able to gather, safely, in the midst of this pandemic. For the common good, we resumed in-person operations with necessary restrictions to keep us safe. Let us recommit to a shared understanding of the critical importance of these protocols and restrictions so that we may care for each other and ourselves. We are grateful for all you are doing to enable continued teaching, learning, and research during this unprecedented and challenging time.
COVID Update and Increased Use of Compliance Badges – 10.20.20