Missouri State University is ending COVID-19 precautions soon

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — There can be a whole return to regular for Missouri State College within the fall of 2022. 

President Clif Good introduced by way of his publication Tuesday that each one COVID-19 insurance policies involving college students can be expiring by the tip of finals week, Might twentieth. 

It has college students reaching the tip of what felt like a rollercoaster on the subject of coping with COVID-19 on campus. 

From large case surges to required masking and testing, college students will now get to expertise the pre-pandemic school expertise. 

OzarksFirst spoke with college students Tuesday about how they really feel in regards to the return to regular. 

“It was exhausting as a result of we needed to put on masks just about in every single place,” mentioned Lucy Lueke. 

“So if I need to do laundry, I needed to put on a masks. That wasn’t enjoyable,” added Natalie Stubblefield. 

Jacey Dixon tells us she doesn’t really feel she missed out on something her freshman yr, saying, “They’re nonetheless doing all the things, We now have our video games, and it’s actually not too dangerous.”

Starting Friday, Missouri State College will now not be requiring masking in clinics on campus. 

College students will now not be required to be examined for COVID-19 earlier than returning to campus every semester. 

The College may also be eradicating its COVID-19 dashboard and every day case counts from its web site. 

Based on the dashboard, Missouri State has had roughly 5 to 10 circumstances of COVID-19 every week for the final eight weeks. 

This compares to upwards of almost 200 circumstances in a single week in the course of the Omicron surge in January. 

“As soon as we obtained by means of that, By the center of February, we’ve actually seen simply extraordinarily low circumstances. So what we’ve seen is there’s actually not a must proceed with it,” mentioned David Corridor, Director of College Security at MSU. 

Corridor mentioned there are nonetheless triggers in place to ramp up insurance policies once more if rising circumstances warrant new mitigating measures. 

“It’s very a lot a aid to see the place we’re at now. After which once more, the hopes we, to start with, acknowledge that you understand, we’re not out of it. We’ll see some enhance and issues like that. However you understand, hopefully, it’s to not the purpose that we would want to revert again to a few of these extra important issues that we’ve needed to do earlier than,” added Corridor. 

The one COVID-19 coverage that may stay at MSU for the subsequent few weeks is paid sick depart for workers who contract the virus. 

Corridor mentioned all graduation ceremonies held on campus Friday can be simply as they had been pre-pandemic. There can be no restrictions in place for graduates or guests.