Students at the University of York are being asked to carry on wearing face masks until a review of the policy next month.
The government’s plan B restrictions are being dropped from today (Thursday), with face coverings and Covid passes no longer legally required in England.
The university’s director of operations is Ian Wiggins. Speaking to URY, the university student’s radio station, he explained why they had issued the guidance.
Mr Wiggins said: “What we’ve seen in our case data over the last weekend is we’ve had quite a few cases coming in.
“In one way, that’s a really positive sign, it shows that students are testing regularly, it shows that they’re reporting those results to the university so we can get a picture of cases and provide support.
“But because we’ve had that increase in cases, our judgement was it would make sense to extend those measures for another couple of weeks.
“So that means a face covering, particularly for students”
Mr Wiggins was asked by URY presenter William King what would need to change for the rules to be relaxed after the 11 February.
“So what what we’d like to see is rates coming down and I should say that that’s very much what we expect to see,” he said.
“So the the pattern of transmission is certainly something that isn’t totally surprising, clearly there’s a lot of socialising going on, people are coming back from different areas of the country so you’d expect to see some infections resulting from that.
“What we could expect to see is those rates coming down again and if they do, I think we’ll be in a position to think sensibly about what measures you need to keep and what measures we can we can lift.
“We’ll do that in consultation with colleagues and public health at the city council.”
He added:”I think it sets a measured and balanced response in terms of what we’re doing. And one of the things that we really wanted to be able to do is is maximise face to face teaching maximise, in person teaching, we know that something that students have really missed.
“I’m conscious, it’s never going to be a perfect policy for for everyone.
“It’s never going to be the perfect response and for every different perspective across campus, but I do think we’ve got the balance right.
“But it’s something we keep under review as we see where case rates go over the next few days.”