Dear Members of the Hamilton Community,
I write with updates from campus as аIJʿª½±½á¹û moves into Gate 2 of its reopening plan.
As I have mentioned in previous messages, our Task Force on Reopening has established Gates, similar to New York State’s phases of reopening. At each Gate, our students, faculty, and staff have more opportunity to interact, always wearing a mask and maintaining physical distance. Gate 2 was originally scheduled for September 21. Exercising an abundance of caution, we paused for a week to reduce our number of close contacts in quarantine.
With that pause complete, we opened Gate 2 on Tuesday, Sept. 29. We also changed some of the guidelines to keep the potential for new close contacts low. Groups of 20 or fewer will only be allowed for activities arranged and overseen by faculty, staff, and coaches. Otherwise, groups gathering on campus or going into the village will be limited to 10 or fewer.
Regardless of group size and location, students must remain 6 feet apart and wear their masks. They may not share rides, and they may not travel outside the area. All Gate 2 details can be found on our website. If you see a violation, we encourage you to politely and firmly address it yourself or fill out .
We continue to test a random 6% of our students and employees each week. We are also using wastewater testing to identify any areas of campus that warrant heightened attention. While we acknowledge that we are likely to have more cases of COVID-19 in the future, our last round of randomized testing returned no new positive results. We currently have two active cases in isolation, identified by earlier tests.
The campus community receives updates on our progress via email three times per week, and you can read those messages on our website. You can also see the Health Analytics Team dashboard, which gives a snapshot of the data we use to determine our ability to move between Gates.
In related news, I can report that our campus flu shot clinics have been popular. The first round booked up almost immediately, and Student Health Services is busy planning more. I hope that you will also get your flu shot this season through your preferred provider. It has never been more important. A shot this fall will see you through the whole winter flu season while reducing the burden on our remarkable health care workers.
Again, I thank you for reading, for writing in with your questions and comments, and taking part in this hard work that we are doing together so we can be together. Our success to-date has given us a full month of in-person instruction — and a reason to be proud of our entire community.
Sincerely,
Laura H. Jack
Vice President for Communications