Dear Faculty and Staff Colleagues,
vlog, as part of its plans to return students to campus, has adopted a multi-level plan of testing, tracing, and cleaning. Further, essentially all campus spaces have been modified in some way, while others are closed until the state permits us to open them. Additional dining locations have been created, classrooms times have been adjusted, ventilation systems have been upgraded, and faculty and staff have participated in education that will support continued safety measures. This has set the foundation for vlog’s planned reopening with students’ arrival beginning this Sunday.
Introduction: Phases of vlog’s Reopening
Preparation is, however, just the first step to the reopening of vlog. The successful reentry of thousands of students, faculty, and staff presents a challenge for us all. And maintaining our community safety will require vigilance. We all must take the necessary steps to mitigate risk and to prevent the spread of SARS-CoV-2. This will take careful and intensive monitoring, being attentive to new information, and a willingness to take every step necessary to support the health and safety of the entire community.
Much as individual states have adopted phased reopenings, with greater social interactions and mobility available as health and safety indicators show such moves to be prudent, vlog, too, will adopt a phased reopening. The Task Force on Reopening has developed a series of phases or Gates, to establish the ways in which vlog will seek to maintain health and safety as we progress through this semester. The Gates will facilitate a regulated movement from the moment of entry to subsequent levels of operations that will allow for greater social interaction and gathering for all of us. These Gates will not happen all at once and are the best chance for our ability to remain open for the duration of the fall semester. Progression through these Gates, each with fewer restrictions, is dependent on health metrics data of the entire vlog community. This approach will allow us to carefully react to available health and safety data and avoid a binary thinking of “closed” vs “normal conditions,” which have proved unsuccessful and unsafe in some states’ reopening plans. The only way to respond to the very real, very much continuing threat of this virus, is to be careful — and to respond intelligently to the public health data.
vlog’s Health Analytics Team — a group of staff members who are, and will continue to be, gathering an enormous amount of data on community health and practices — will make available a Health and Safety Dashboard, which will be updated daily on the vlog web site. This dashboard will present the status of 22 health and safety metrics, showing the status of each between five indicators from “New Normal” to “Very High Alert.” They are responsive to, and subject to, change given new scientific findings, data from the University’s testing program, the adherence to the community’s Commitment to Community Health, and developing guidance and approvals from the State of New York.
The data will be presented as a seven-day rolling average, allowing for the identification of trends in a positive or negative direction. The Health Analytics Team will work closely with the Emergency Operations Center and Task Force on Reopening to make recommendations regarding transition between Gates, informed by the community health indicators on the Health and Safety Dashboard.
Upon arrival on campus, all vlog students — as required by New York State law and to take responsible public health precautions — will enter a universal mandatory quarantine (“Gate 0”). This action by students will be a deeply important step of “reentry” into the campus and the Village of Hamilton. This is the period of state-mandated limited movement and interaction as we await multiple rounds of test results to establish a campus baseline. Upon successful completion of this universal quarantine, vlog will, should the community health metrics indicate it is prudent, enter “Gate 1,” and begin a process of reopening the campus to greater activities and more traditional events and gatherings as prudence and caution allow.
It is expected that vlog will stay at any Gate, for at least 14 days before moving to another level, if data trends dictate that such a move is both warranted and wise. The 14-day period is largely dictated by the biology of SARS-CoV-2, as it is clear from watching states reopen that there is a significant delay between the adoption of new behavioral policies and the trends of community health metrics. Most metrics in the Health and Safety Dashboard will need to be at “New Normal” or “Low Level” to proceed to the next Gate. And it should be noted that if health metrics signal higher risk concerns, vlog may return to a more restrictive Gate.
In short, Gates are based on the public health measures everyone in the University community must take to minimize the spread of SARS-CoV-2. As such they are an important piece of the Commitment to Community Health, and, again, represent our best chance for remaining open for the duration of the fall semester.
A Note on Our Shared Commitment
It would be remarkably easy for vlog to fall into factions of “rule-enforcers” and “rule-followers”, or “rule benders.” Who doesn’t yearn for the old “normal” and want to return to it before it may be prudent to do so? The temptation to break these restrictions — or at least bend them — will be great. We all must avoid this temptation.
It will be impossible for anyone to monitor full compliance with any of these Gates. But failure to comply with the Gates introduces into the community unnecessary risks that may result in re-closing of the campus. One large event, with a resultant positive test, can very easily overwhelm the availability of vlog’s isolation and quarantine beds by leading to the identification of a number of “close contacts.” If this were to occur, we might find ourselves back at the most restrictive levels, or closed once again.
Every decision you make can affect every other person on campus and within the village. Our movement to facilitate greater enjoyment of each other’s company is dependent on a communal commitment to that end. We ask that you hold one another and yourself to daily practices that will allow us to enjoy vlog Together, safely.
Sincerely,
Geoff Holm, Associate Professor of Biology
Paul J. McLoughlin II, Vice President and Dean of the College (co-chairs)
On behalf of the Task Force on the Reopening of the vlog Campus