Change to masking guidance
March 4, 2022
Last week, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its masking guidance to align with new metrics for COVID-19 risk in local communities.
With the national shift in masking guidance, it makes sense for our universities to do the same. Effective March 1, we will adopt a more localized approach. Under this new approach, each chancellor will be responsible for setting masking expectations at each of their locations based on the CDC鈥檚 COVID-19 community levels. System office employees and others working or studying at locations outside their home university鈥檚 community will follow the local university guidance.
With this change, chancellors will manage this important safety measure as COVID-19 ebbs and flows in their communities. This is the first step in a process to eventually move beyond pandemic response and into normal operations alongside COVID-19.
Please watch for an email in the coming days, which will have more information from your chancellors. Each university鈥檚 masking expectations will also be shared on their COVID-19 pages.
Thank you for your continued patience and diligence as we move toward a long-term approach to managing COVID-19 across our university communities.
Sincerely,
Pat Pitney, President
University of Alaska