On Oct. 18, President Greer sent out an email to announce a relaxation of COVID-19 protocol. Milligan is now mask-optional except in the following settings: large indoor gatherings, classrooms or laboratories for more than a short period of time, and indoor sporting events.
This decision was made by Dr. Greer and the Response Team after observing the community.
“When we looked around campus, and we looked throughout the region, we’re seeing very minimal cases here and numbers going down regionally,” said Dr. Greer. “Lots of organizations and school systems have relaxed their mask mandates.”
The rules stated in the new protocol can seem vague, but that isn’t an accident.
“People have a sense of what is responsible and what’s not, so we wanted to give our faculty and our students the opportunities to work that out themselves,” Dr. Greer said.
While we do not know the rates of vaccinations on campus, Health Services believes they have a good idea.
“Our health services folks attribute the fact that we have so few cases and that we have so few quarantines, to a high vaccination rate even though we have not surveyed or asked,” said Dr. Greer.
Despite this, Dr. Greer still encouraged people to get their vaccine, while also respecting those who choose not to, as the goal is always to return to a safe community environment.
“We want to restore as much normalcy as we can, when we can,” said Dr. Greer. “And part of the reason for doing that when we can is so that if we have to reinstitute stronger protocols later, then we might be heard more clearly.”
Before this semester, Dr. Greer frequently stated in his emails that Milligan was consulting CDC guidelines. Currently, the CDC classifies Carter County as a high transmission community and states that “everyone should wear a mask in public indoor settings.”According to an analysis by The New York Times, despite the decrease in cases “the test positivity rate in Carter County is very high, suggesting that cases are being significantly undercounted.”
For more information on COVID-19 guidelines in Carter County, visit the CDC website here.
Headline Photo: With cases declining on campus, Milligan looks to adjust mask protocol by making campus “mask optional” with exceptions.