Pictured above: Mount Holyoke’s COVID-19 testing site at Carr Laboratory on campus. Photo by Trinity Kendrick ‘21
By Casey Roepke ’21
News Editor
After an initial two-week quarantine period, Mount Holyoke College has officially marked a shift into Operating Level 2: Modified Normal COVID-19 Operations with Heightened Awareness. Residential students received a series of communications from the Office of Residential Life alerting them of the new restrictions and guidelines beginning on Feb. 1.
Operating Level 2 is marked by several criteria, as outlined by the College’s COVID-19 Dashboard. According to the dashboard, this level has a “moderate number of cases with most from a known source,” and students must “limit further exposure … and continue all precautions.”
Restrictions were at their tightest during the first two-week period of the term. Residential students are now permitted to leave campus, although only to go to the Village Commons, CVS, Big Y, Trader Joe’s or Walmart via campus shuttle or off-campus health appointments.
Students are also required to maintain a 6-foot distance from others on their off-campus excursions. In an email sent to residential students on Jan. 29, Rachel Alldis, associate dean of students and director of Residential Life, wrote, “Although it may be tempting to look for loopholes, please remember that your community — your on-campus peers and essential College employees — are relying on you to help limit the spread of the virus.”
As of Feb. 3, there have been 23 positive tests on Mount Holyoke’s campus since the move-in process began in early January.
“We have and will continue to expand and contract campus access for residential groups, by floor, for example, as the result of testing and tracing data,” Alldis said. Those directly affected by a positive test or through contact tracing are notified, while the entire campus community is only told about changes in operative levels. “This protocol was followed in all recent incidents of modifying campus access among members of a residence hall,” Alldis said.
The College declined to comment more specifically on these “incidents” or other reports of floor closures.