Leaders of some Massachusetts colleges are welcoming the Baker administration's recommendation that they loosen COVID-19 restrictions and begin to treat the disease like the flu, an endemic than can be managed.
Education Secretary Jim Peyser and Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders made the recommendations in a letter late last week.
“With virtually all students and staff vaccinated, higher education has the opportunity to lead — transitioning back to ‘near normal,’” Peyser and Sudders wrote.
“Early in the pandemic, we made trade-offs, and veered on the side of remote learning and isolation,” they added. “Overly strict protocols that inhibit any level of social interaction are counterproductive, at this time.”
The secretaries say now is the time to reconsider these protocols to help promote “a return to healthy social interactions, including: remote learning; restricting or discouraging group activities; overly aggressive surveillance testing; and mask type requirements.”
Rob McCarron, president and CEO of the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities in Massachusetts, told GBH News his members have relied “on science and data to guide their decisions for almost two years, and will continue to do so as we hopefully move into the endemic phase of Covid.”
As positivity rates continue to decline, McCarron said in a statement, the private colleges he represents will take every opportunity to safely return to pre-pandemic campus life.
Northeastern University President Joseph Aoun had argued for an endemic approach since August of 2020, bringing back all students in-person and requiring them to be vaccinated and tested. Most recently, Northeastern eliminated isolation dorm rooms, a move some students criticized as unsafe and impratical.
“The virus isn’t going away,” Aoun wrote in an op-ed in The Washington Post two years ago. “That’s why campuses need to reopen.”
Despite the omicron variant, GBH News reported, most Massachusetts colleges returned last month to campus in person and on time.
The College Crisis Initiative at Davidson College, a research effort tracking COVID-19 plans for more than 500 four-year colleges nationally, found about 12% of colleges began their spring semester remotely and just under 3% delayed their scheduled start.
