Since returning to campus, discussions regarding ending the mask mandate have been swirling in both student and administrative circles. Following weeks of teasing it, President Poser finally announced an end to the school-wide mask mandate.
After nearly two years of living in a masked world, declining COVID rates and robust public health conditions and systems have allowed Hofstra’s administration to lift the mask mandate in a reasonable and risk-reduced way.
While very few like wearing a mask day in and out, many students have accepted masks as a condition central to their feeling safe on campus, with many rejecting the ending of the mandate. Some of these same pro-mandate students hypocritically crowd into the maskless and frankly unsanitary environment at Catch or frat parties every Friday night.
Students have been conditioned to associate any anti-mandate sentiment with that of conservative right-leaning beliefs, though this polarizing equivalence is a false dichotomy. While it is true that throughout the pandemic, right-leaning individuals were those irrationally spreading anti-mandate arguments, those on the left should not now be irrational in their pro mandate stance. Public health policy relies on changing conditions. When conservatives espoused declaring the pandemic over, they did so at a time when the public health conditions required a mandate, now that those same conditions clearly do not require one, why should we fall into irrational arguments. We need to stop letting our feelings dictate our opinions on common-sense policies.
While political perceptions of being anti-mandate may be the reason for some students to disagree with the president’s message, others may have a genuine health concern, though that is just as irrational.
Hofstra has a 100% vaccination and booster rate and our average weekly test positivity rate has been below 0.5% since the beginning of the Spring semester. Not only are your chances of catching the virus low, according to a plethora of statistics, but the vast majority of those who are vaccinated and boosted also will not end up in the hospitalnonetheless die if they catch COVID. With low positivity rates, enforced vaccine mandates, and frequent surveillance testing, Hofstra is an incredibly COVID-safe environment.
Walk into the student center any given time during the week and you’ll see hundreds of unmasked students eating and socializing within inches of their peers. You can sit in the packed student center without a mask, but you’re not allowed to sit by yourself on the empty 10th floor of the library without one because… COVID likes to read? The current mandate runs counter to common sense, while the new guidelines will make the policy correlate with science.
The new mask policy does not prohibit masks, it simply allows individuals to calculate their own risk. Those who want to wear a mask should, those who do not, don’t have to. We are at a point in the pandemic where a miscalculation in risk will not lead to serious illness or death. Just as you weigh the health risk of going out partying on the weekend, you can now do so over a much less risky issue. Not every situation is the same; walking through the large open Student Center is different than being in a cramped classroom; sitting next to the student who doesn’t cover their sneezes is different than sitting next to an open window.
If the relaxed mask guidelines prove to create a large uptick in cases (which it likely won’t since a vast number of students are already not wearing masks in “high-risk” situations), or another variant changes the risk conditions associated with COVID, then a mask mandate can be properly adjusted, just as President Poser writes, “if conditions change, we may need to require masks again”.
Masks are an important tool of fighting COVID and many students including myself will continue wearing masks when needed, but science and logic are necessary to create effective and safe health policies and ditching the mask mandate is supported by both.
