Students at the University of Massachusetts Amherst will not be required to wear high-grade face coverings, such as N95 masks, while in campus buildings this spring, the school said Thursday as it clarified a previous statement on health and safety guidelines for the upcoming semester.
In a message on Jan. 13, UMass administrators said students and staff “should use a higher-grade mask,” such as a KN95, KF94, or N95, or should otherwise double mask. Cloth masks are not effective in stopping transmission of the omicron COVID-19 variant, the school said, and should only be used on top of another mask.
On Thursday, university spokesperson Ed Blaguszewski said the school “urges, but does not require, the use of a high grade mask.”
The university’s health and safety guidelines have since last week been reworded. Instead of saying that “everyone should use a higher-grade mask,” the new protocols say that UMass leaders “strongly urge you to use a high-grade mask.”
Though not a requirement, the new policy still goes further than the university’s standard for its fall semester, when many students wore cloth masks or single surgical masks.
UMass is not the only college or university upgrading its masking requirements. The University of Southern California said last week that is requiring “medical grade masks, which at minimum are surgical masks and may also include higher grade respirator masks (N95, KN95, or KF94)” in indoor spaces. The University of Arizona, Cornell University and the University of Maryland enacted similar policies.
At UMass, school community members are expected to supply their own masks, an email from Blaguszewski said. The university recently placed a large order for KN95 masks and said it would provide them to those who are unable to find their own.
After requiring students and staff to receive a COVID vaccine for the fall semester, UMass said in early December that students and staff would also need a booster shot before classes resume on Jan. 25. More than 97% of the school was vaccinated in the fall, with few exceptions made based on medical or religious grounds.
Since the beginning of January, more than 700 students and staff have tested positive for the virus, according to the school’s COVID case dashboard. UMass students are required to test for COVID between 10 and 14 days prior to the semester beginning in order to provide time for them to isolate before classes resume.
The highly transmissible omicron variant was present in all positive tests conducted on the campus, UMass said. The cases spike since New Year’s Eve is in line with what other communities across Massachusetts have experienced in recent weeks. Amherst has reported 600 cases of the virus since the new year.
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