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Dear USD Campus Community:
Thanks to your diligent efforts to comply with our health and safety measures, our COVID-19 positivity rate remains low. As we prepare for our students to return from Spring break (March 14), we recognize that previous returns from breaks (Thanksgiving, Christmas and Intersession) resulted in increased COVID-19 cases on campus. Compliance with our health and safety protocols enabled us to contain and reduce these temporary COVID-19 case increases within two weeks.
With this in mind, we will maintain our indoor face covering policy and COVID-19 weekly and random testing for two weeks following the community’s return from Spring break. Doing so will help reduce the spread of COVID-19 and allow us to continue to monitor our positivity rates.
We are confident that our campus’ high vaccination rate and natural immunity from previous COVID infection, surveillance testing, on-campus contact tracing, and other mitigation protocols will continue to provide a lower-risk environment for our campus community.
Further, in light of the most recent guidelines from the California Department of Public Health and the County of San Diego, and assuming our campus data support some relaxation of the face covering protocol, we will be updating our face covering and random testing requirements as follows:
Face Coverings
Effective Monday, March 28, individuals on our campus will continue to be required to wear face coverings during in-person classes and labs, in libraries, in the Student Health Center, on Torero trams and when using other university vehicles. While face coverings in other indoor settings will no longer be required, they continue to be strongly recommended. Those who would like a KN95 face covering may go to Facilities Management and one will be provided.
COVID-19 Testing
Random COVID-19 testing will cease on March 28. Weekly COVID-19 testing requirements will continue for those with COVID-19 vaccine exemptions. Continuing these weekly tests will enable us to identify any COVID-19 positivity surges that may occur, going forward. As we continue to monitor COVID-19 positivity rates through our weekly testing, Student Health Center evaluations and other wellness channels, we will be prepared to adjust our health and safety requirements as needed. If infection rates significantly rise, we may return to requiring face coverings inside all buildings. We ask that you remain diligent with hand washing and other hygienic practices to reduce your risk of getting sick. As a reminder, if you are feeling sick, please stay home!
The San Diego County COVID-19 testing site at the west end of our campus will remain active, available and free for our campus community throughout the Spring semester.
FAQs on this topic that can be accessed here. Thank you again for your continued efforts in making health and safety a priority as we journey together through the second half of our Spring semester.
The COVID-19 Action Team
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