May 14, 2021 – Threshold Action Level Update

Dear Whitman community,

As my emails to you on Monday and Wednesday indicated, it has been a difficult week at Whitman in terms of COVID activity. We had one new case confirmed yesterday, for a total of five cases directly linked to student gatherings that took place last week. Extensive contact tracing, quarantining and testing of close contacts has taken place. Thankfully, our final round of campus pooled surveillance testing did not uncover any further cases of COVID-19 in our community, and we hope that this outbreak is contained.

While you saw an email earlier today about our summer campus access practices, please remember that those do not go into effect until Monday, May 24. Because our vaccine tracking remains incomplete and out of an abundance of caution given the current COVID cases on campus, we will continue through Commencement to follow all the practices we’ve had in place under Threshold Action Level 1: Low. 

That means that masking in all public indoor and outdoor places is still required, regardless of your vaccination status. Also remaining in effect are restrictions on gatherings (15 people outdoor, 5 people indoor, and everyone masked and maintaining 6 ft. of distance from each other) and visitors in the residence halls (one per room; not allowed in hall public spaces; visitors from off-campus are not allowed).

We also continue to encourage everyone to be vaccinated as soon as possible and remind all students that being vaccinated is required for summer access to campus and for the fall semester. The CDC’s online vaccine locator can help you find available vaccines anywhere in the U.S. Once you have completed your vaccination, make sure to complete the COVID-19 Vaccination Reporting Form.

Many endings are in sight: the end of the semester, the end of many COVID restrictions (at least for everyone who is vaccinated), the end of these weekly updates! We’ve worked so diligently over many, many months to keep our community healthy and strong; let’s finish this last week strong, knowing the importance of doing everything we can to help bring this pandemic to an end on our campus, in Walla Walla and around the world.

Best,

Peter Harvey
Coronavirus Task Force Chair