Review of campus safety measures

The following message was shared with the Ohio University community on Jan. 19, 2021.

Dear OHIO community members,

Welcome to the start of the semester! Last week, just over 3,000 students moved into the residence halls, and many off-campus students arrived in Athens. Prior to return, students were asked to use an at-home, saliva-based COVID-19 test from Vault Health. Students living in residence halls were also asked to use the same PCR test at our on-site Vault testing center. To date, we have identified 248 positive tests out of 9,453 tests completed, across all OHIO campuses; most of those individuals completed isolation before arriving on campus.

State case numbers appear to be on a slight downward trend but remain high. With the influx of students to Athens, we can expect a rapid increase in cases. All counties with OHIO campuses have been declining slightly. We do not expect the student population at the non-Athens campuses to appreciably change the rate of cases, as most students already live in the counties and classroom transmission is relatively rare. As we kick off the semester, please review the Presidential Health Directives, which inform and support the safety measures I’ve summarized below.

Campus safety measures

The start of spring semester is a great time to remind ourselves of key OHIO COVID-19 Safety Measures. Recommitting to safe practices gives us the best chance of keeping campus open and avoiding sickness, isolation, or quarantine.

• Public health measures: OHIO’s mask policy and physical distancing requirements remain in place. Masks, digital thermometers, and other personal protective equipment are available to all students returning to any campus this semester.
• Required Daily COVID Symptom Assessment: All students, faculty, and staff are required to measure their body temperature and complete an online daily symptom assessment before leaving their residence hall and/or leaving home to come to campus.
• COVID-19 testing: The University has implemented a broad and sophisticated COVID-19 testing program. Strategies include the COVID-19 Hotline for symptomatic testing and clinical case management; an asymptomatic testing program through Vault Health that includes mandatory testing for all students who will have an on-campus presence; and wide net testing with CVS.
• COVID Campus Liaisons: OHIO COVID Operations has built a team of COVID Campus Liaisons to address the needs of individuals on all OHIO campuses. On the Athens campus, through a partnership with the Athens City-County Health Department, our team of CCLs is taking on the job of case investigations and contact tracing for OHIO-related COVID-19 exposures.
• Campus cleaning protocols: Since last March, Ohio University Facilities Management and Safety has been following the Centers for Disease Control’s disinfection protocols on all campuses to ensure our workspaces are safe.
• Incident Report form: For any known incidence of COVID-19 sickness or exposure, whether it is yourself, a student or a colleague, please submit an Incident Report form. We’d rather get duplicate reports than miss a chance to help someone who might be sick or initiate contact tracing.

Vaccine rollout continues to be complicated

The rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine continues to be complicated nationally, statewide, and locally. In Ohio, vaccines are now being provided to healthcare systems, local health departments, and local pharmacies for distribution according to Ohio’s phased approach. Each of these entities receives only a small amount of the vaccine each week, and because each has its own method of promotion, registration, and distribution of the vaccine, many individuals are confused and are registering to receive a vaccine in multiple places. While most students, faculty and staff have not yet been given access to the vaccine, we are happy to report that most of our students in the health professions who are in clinical settings have now been able to access it through various health systems across the state.

One area of concern is vaccine uptake. Health systems and health departments are reporting about 40 percent to 50 percent vaccination rates among those who are offered the vaccine. This is concerning because we need 70 percent to 85 percent of the population to be vaccinated to stop the pandemic. If offered a vaccine, please do not delay in taking advantage of the opportunity. If you miss your window, there is no guarantee that you will be afforded an opportunity again soon.

My best advice is to follow the official local and state channels for just-in-time information on vaccine availability. In Athens County, the Athens City-County Health Department makes just-in-time announcements on its Facebook page and most other county health departments use social media to alert the public of vaccine clinics. Additionally, the state has built a new vaccine provider tool that allows you to search by county for locations throughout Ohio that have received shipments of COVID-19 vaccines for those being vaccinated in Phase 1B. Phase 1B, which begins today, includes a tiered system for offering vaccinations to those eligible under this phase, beginning with those who are 80 or older. We will also use our COVID Operations social media accounts to pass along up-to-date vaccine information.

It is important to note that even with the vaccine, people will need to continue to follow basic prevention measures – masking, physical distancing, and handwashing – until we can drive the vaccine rates up and the case rates down.

Implementing OHIO's COVID response plan is up to all of us

Certainly, there have been challenges to bringing people back to campus while there is wide community spread of COVID-19. Our prevention strategies follow public health guidance and best practices that many institutes of higher education have identified as effective at containing outbreaks. We believe our multi-layered response to COVID-19 will help minimize the spread of the virus as much as possible. Though there’s no prevention measure that will completely eliminate the risk of spread, we believe that we have put together a science-based, comprehensive strategy to manage outbreaks on campus.

Each of us will need to make countless choices to implement these strategies. I ask you to join me in taking the important daily actions that protect the health and safety of our entire OHIO community.

Dr. Gillian Ice
Special Assistant to the President for Public Health Operations