As COVID-19 cases continue a strong downward trend in Kent County (down 50% over the most recent seven-day period for cases and down 27% for hospital admissions), and as our numbers at Calvin continue to stay in the low single digits for active cases among students, we are going to make a couple of modest changes for a two-week trial period, starting today (Feb. 14) and lasting until spring break begins. 

In three locations we will continue to recommend masks but make them optional: 

  • Residence hall basements and lounges 
  • Spoelhof Fieldhouse Complex 
  • Hekman Library (Floors 2-5 but not Floor 1, which is home to the CIT offices and the student labs)  

Look for new signs in those locations starting today. 

Please note that masks will continue to be required in any other indoor location on campus, including all classrooms and other spaces where classes meet 

See below for further details and caveats on the three locations where we will be putting this trial period into place. 

Spoelhof Fieldhouse Complex – Masks are recommended but optional for any non-academic, participatory activities, including intramurals, pick-up games, fitness center workouts, the climbing wall and more. Calvin classes in the SFC will continue to require a mask (as continues to be the case for any class on campus). In addition, spectators at Calvin varsity and junior varsity events also can choose to wear masks during the trial period. 

Hekman Library – Masks will be recommended but optional on Floors 2-5 (starting with the floor Peet’s is on and going through the top floor of the library). Masks will be required on Floor 1, which is where the Information Technology offices as well as several student computer labs are located. Please respect the continuing mask requirement on the first floor. 

Residence hall basements and lounges – We are expanding mask-optional to more areas of the residence halls (students already are mask-optional in their rooms, on the floors and in other locations). Residence hall students have received a separate communication from residence life with details about this change. 

Rationale 

In addition to the falling cases counts in the county (see https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#datatracker-home) and on campus, we are willing to enter this trial period because of our high vaccination rates among students, faculty, and staff (plus natural immunity from previous positives) and because of the recent widespread availability of N95 and KN95 masks for the first time during the pandemic.  

These masks provide dramatically higher protection against the original SARS-CoV2 and its subsequent variants and better protection for one N95- or KN95-masked person than was previously available when two or more people were wearing cloth masks.  

N95 and KN95 masks continue to be available through Calvin, and if you have masks you have acquired elsewhere at one of the many locations in the area that are dispensing them, we are happy to help you fit-test the mask to make sure it is filtering the air as it is intended. Contact Jennifer Ambrose at jambrose@calvin.edu to make an appointment to have her assist you with your N95 or KN95. 

We also recently received new guidance from the CDC for IHEs (institutions of higher education), and this guidance noted that the CDC now considers college and university shared housing to be “a lower risk congregate setting due to the lower risk of severe health outcomes associated with young adults.”  

That guidance, along with the falling cases, high vaccination rates and availability of good masks, gives us confidence to proceed with our trial period, especially in the residence hall settings. 

In addition, during this trial period, know that we will continue to carefully look at case rates on campus and determine if these changes lead to any spikes or spread. If the changes do not, then the trial will continue after spring break and through the end of the semester (again, subject to change if we see spikes or spread). We will evaluate expanding the trial to other venues and locations on campus in the coming weeks and will communicate any relevant changes. 

Finally, as is the case with everything we do as a COVID Response Team, we do not take these changes lightly. As is true for almost every sector of our society, at Calvin, we continue to balance a significant number of complementary and sometimes competing concerns when it comes to COVID and the ongoing pandemic. We remain in close contact and dialogue with the Kent County Health department and Michigan Department of Health and Human Services about our on-campus strategies, and we continue to receive and analyze volumes of information from the CDC, the World Health Organization, and other sources around COVID. 

As a result, we believe that this upcoming trial is a measured and appropriate next step for our campus, and we will be watching the results closely as we move forward. We welcome you to contact us with questions or concerns at responseteam@calvin.edu.

Best wishes to all as we make this two-week push to what will be a very welcome spring break. 

The COVID Response Team