By Alyssa Schnugg
News editor
Whether students at the University of Mississippi will still have to wear masks indoors on campus when they return in January is still up in the air.
As of Thursday, the mask mandate on campus is still in place.
“In keeping with guidance from the Mississippi State Department of Health, the university currently requires face coverings in indoor public spaces on campus, regardless of vaccination status, due to transmission levels of the virus in Lafayette County,” said Lisa G. Stone, Strategic Communications Director. “We will continue to monitor how the data and other developments impact our campus protocols.”
Any updates to campus protocols for the spring semester will be communicated to faculty, staff and students, Stone said and posted on the University’s COVID-19 website.
Cases of COVID-19 on campus have been low for the last few weeks, with six new cases reported from Dec. 1 – 14.
Health experts have expressed some concern that people traveling and gathering over the holidays could spark another increase of cases over the next few weeks, especially of the Omicron variant that appears to be more contagious, albeit, less severe than other variants. The Delta variant is still the dominant variant in Mississippi.
The University implemented the mask mandate for all indoor public spaces on campus in August.
