Masks required outdoors at Mizzou as university leaders try to slow COVID-19 spread
The University of Missouri announced stricter face mask requirements in the hopes of slowing the spread of coronavirus. Boone County, home to the university’s campus in Columbia, recently reported a 44.6% positive test rate in one week, local health officials said.
Beginning Tuesday, all students, faculty, staff and visitors on campus must wear a face covering, including outdoors, according to a university news release.
This mask requirement remains in place even if a person is alone outside. Face coverings must be over the mouth and nose.
The new rules also mean that any groups eating or drinking together outdoors must remain at least six feet apart and must put their masks back on as soon as they’re finished with their food or drink, according to the release.
Expanded rules are also in place for indoor workspaces, including the required use of a mask coupled with social distancing during all in-person meetings.
“The safety and well-being of our campus community is our highest priority,” the university system president and chancellor, Mun Choi, said in a statement Tuesday. “ ... Based on behaviors we’re seeing on campus and the guidance of public health experts, we are requiring face coverings at all times on campus, even if alone and outdoors or in the company of roommates and other members of the same household. This is a necessary requirement to mitigate further spread of COVID-19.”
According to a recent article by The New York Times, Columbia has the sixth greatest number of new cases, per population, of any metro city in the U.S. in the past two weeks.
Scott Clardy, assistant director of Columbia/Boone County Public Health and Human Services, said while he can’t guarantee the accuracy of the Times’ data, the published list, which includes numerous university towns like Ames, Iowa, Champaign, Illinois, and Oxford, Mississippi, doesn’t surprise him.
“It shows that we have similar situations going on across the country,” he said.
University spokesman Christian Basi said while the university continues to see new cases among students, the vast majority of new cases are coming from after-hours activities rather than on-campus activities.
“We are not seeing evidence that there is spread within classrooms,” he said.
On Aug. 24, the first day of classes, Mizzou reported that 159 students tested positive for COVID-19. As of Tuesday, that number had risen to 658 students, 444 of whom have recovered.
On Aug. 27, Mizzou’s fraternities suspended all in-person activities at Greek chapter houses on and off campus in an effort to limit the spread of COVID-19.
A day later, health officials in Columbia and Boone County put into place a new order prohibiting bars and restaurants from serving alcohol after 9 p.m. Entertainment venues were also ordered to close at 10 p.m.
“What we were seeing prior to that is a lot of socializing was occurring in these facilities late in the evening and there was no social distancing occurring then,” Clardy said.
The county’s latest positivity rate, taken from COVID-19 data from Aug. 21 through Aug. 27, was 44.6%, he said. His department is waiting on further state data to calculate a more up-to-date positivity rate.
As of Sunday, the county’s rate was 871 new cases per 100,000 people, Clardy added. Two weeks prior it was 422 per 100,000 people. This means that in a two week period, the new case rate more than doubled.
“That’s very telling as to what we have going on in the community,” he said.
For the week that ended Aug. 23, the county saw a 328% increase from the week prior in the number of cases in 18 through 22-year-olds. That number has only grown since, Clardy said.
Many of the young people recently diagnosed with coronavirus have said they weren’t social distancing, wearing masks or staying home when they’re sick, he added.
As of Tuesday, 3,568 people have contracted the coronavirus in Boone County, and six have died, according to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services.
With the new alcohol establishment restrictions in place followed closely by the Labor Day holiday, Clardy hopes to see a decrease in cases about two weeks from now.
Anthony Tretter, Mizzou’s student body president and a senior from Lawrence studying political science and economics, said while some students are calling on universities to move to remote learning, the situation is nuanced.
“If we wanted to maximize limiting the risk, I think the reality is yeah, I think going online is probably the best way to do that,” Tretter said. “But it does come at a cost.”
He recognizes that online learning is more difficult for some students, and that some classes are nearly impossible to teach remotely.
Basi, the university spokesman, said there’s no plan to take classes fully online as of Tuesday.
Tretter said while he’s also observed more students following COVID-19 guidelines on campus than off, he hopes the university will begin to report more detailed testing data in the near future, including the testing positivity rate as well as how many of the infected students live on campus versus off.
He also expressed concern that students, by and large, do not seem to be using a new university app, called CampusClear, to complete a symptom and temperature checklist each day, as university officials requested.
Basi said while the campus community is required to check their symptoms, the app is a useful tool to do so, but use of the app is not required.
On Thursday, less than two weeks after classes began, university officials announced that 330 students would be punished for violating COVID-19 safety rules.
The students’ violations ranged from refusing to wear a mask to sneaking guests into residence halls and throwing big parties on campus, university officials said.
This story was originally published September 8, 2020 at 6:41 PM.
