While face coverings may no longer be mandatory nationally with the lifting of plan B restrictions in England, we know that our Ö÷²¥ÓÕ»ó community has a diverse range of needs and the Covid-19 infection rate locally still remains high. In addition, it is the start of a new semester, when many of you are returning to campus and we are also welcoming our new students to the university. Therefore, while this period of transition is taking place, and to protect against any disruption of face to face teaching, face coverings remain mandatory in all indoor spaces on campus. This will continue until at least Monday 14 February, when we will update you further.
In the meantime, we will continue to monitor the local picture with regards to case rates and, to help inform our decisions around health and safety measures at Ö÷²¥ÓÕ»ó and understand how we can best support you, we will be asking you for your views about the use of face coverings on our campuses. We will send you a very short survey this afternoon for you to complete, so please look out for this email.
As it has been throughout the entire pandemic, the safety of all our students and staff remains our first priority, as well as doing all we can to support the continuation of face-to-face, on-campus teaching during the rest of this academic year. Therefore, we are keeping our enhanced health and safety measures in place across campus, including:
- Enhanced cleaning regimes in all spaces
- Enhanced ventilation
- Encouraging good hand hygiene
- Keeping room at the front of teaching spaces where possible
- Staggering our lecture times to allow for time to ventilate and move in and out of rooms between sessions.
We will update you further on Monday 14 February. Until then, thank you for your continued co-operation and support for the Ö÷²¥ÓÕ»ó community, and please remember to bring and wear your face covering when on campus.