Bob Jones University President Steve Pettit announced today that BJU will re-implement masking in indoor public facilities for the next two weeks to assist in the mitigation of COVID-19.
“With the increase in the number of positive cases among our student body, it is necessary that we move to requiring masks as one of the steps to mitigate the COVID-19 virus,” said Pettit. “It is our intention to continue to provide as robust as possible an on-campus, in-person student experience and we believe the steps we are taking today are necessary to accomplish those goals and protect the health of our community.”
Masking will be required in all public buildings—including academic buildings, athletic facilities, auditoriums, dining facilities and office buildings—and will remain in effect through Wednesday, September 15. BJU's COVID-19 Task Force, in conjunction with the Student Health Services office, will monitor the prevalence of positive COVID cases on campus and may recommend extending the mask requirement.
Since we are currently seeing reinfections of people who have already had COVID-19, as well as positive cases among those who have been vaccinated, masking will be required of all faculty, staff, and students regardless of vaccination status or whether one has previously had COVID-19.
As of this morning, BJU has 64 active student cases and zero active faculty/staff cases. Most of the positive cases are residence hall students. While residence hall students are isolated in an on-campus facility, one of the risks is that should the facility become full, we will need to send students home to recover. Currently, we have 38 students in on-campus isolation.
Other mitigation efforts include increasing the physical spacing between students in our auditoriums, increasing our cleaning protocols and systematically treating all buildings using hydrostatic machines that have been proven effective in killing the COVID-19 virus.
During the 2020-2021 academic year, BJU relaxed COVID protocols in February 2021, and was successfully able to manage the virus through the end of the academic year as well as throughout the summer EDUcamp and sports camp sessions.
