(Photo Source: Tompkins Cortland Community College Twitter Page).
Press release from Tompkins Cortland Community College.
All faculty, staff, students, and visitors are now required to wear masks when inside campus buildings, regardless of vaccination status.
With a spike in COVID cases over the past week, Tompkins County is now classified by as having “Substantial” community transmission, a category defined as having spread above 50 cases per 100,000 residents. Current CDC recommendations for these communities is for everyone to resume wearing masks in public indoor settings – including fully vaccinated individuals. The Tompkins County Health Department has also issued a recommendation for county employees to wear a mask indoors, regardless of vaccination status.
In the best interest of the health of our campus and community, the College will follow the TCHD and CDC recommendations and once again require masks be worn indoors on campus. This applies to everyone, regardless of vaccination status. This applies to all individuals on campus (faculty, staff, students, and visitors) and in all indoor spaces on campus, unless in a private, non-shared space (e.g., office) or when eating.
We are still finalizing our protocols and guidelines for the fall semester. This has been complicated by the ever-changing COVID landscape, and our desire to not add confusion by having to retract and edit protocols after they have been announced. Moving forward, we are preparing a process for faculty, staff, and students to (voluntarily) provide the College with their vaccination status. More information on this, along with all the fall guidelines, will be coming soon.
While it is true that the latest positive cases include some fully vaccinated individuals, the vaccine remains the best way to safeguard yourself and the community. The vaccine has proven effective in protecting the community and defending individuals from severe illness, hospitalization, and death. We continue to urge everyone in our community to seriously consider getting vaccinated.
