Throughout Spring Semester, Vice President for Student Life Jon Dooley is providing regular email update messages to keep students and parents informed about the efforts related to COVID-19.
Dear Students, Faculty, and Staff,
Current status
- Elon’s current COVID-19 alert level is “Level 1 – Moderate Alert.” The Elon COVID-19 Dashboard is updated daily at 4:00 p.m. with case counts on campus and in the county, as well as weekly testing results.
- Since last week’s email update, Elon has received new reports of 53 PCR-confirmed cases of COVID-19 among students and employees.
- As of yesterday afternoon, there were an estimated total of 61 active cases, with 225 students in quarantine or isolation.
Our message this week is fairly simple: we need to stay together as a community, doing our part to limit the spread of the virus. We all want to have a successful semester – maintaining the health and well-being of our community and continuing in-person classes and work without disruption. We also all want to avoid the types of social hiatus measures that became necessary in the fall and to be able to host more in-person events – not the least of which are the commencement activities for the Classes of 2020 and 2021.
But all of these are jeopardized by individual actions and choices that are associated with increased spread of the coronavirus, including exposure at ill-advised social gatherings and through unnecessary travel.
The new variants of the virus are a concern for us, since there is indication they may spread more quickly. The data seems to indicate that a prior positive case may not provide lasting immunity from contracting or spreading the virus. For these reasons, all students, faculty and staff, should continue to abide by the guidelines of the Healthy Elon Commitment.
By this point, we each know what we need to do:
- Wear a mask. Everywhere you go. Whenever you leave your room, apartment, house, or office.
- Practice physical distancing. Choose daily practices and interactions that maintain distance between you and others with whom you do not live.
- Socialize safely. In-person classes and monitored campus events remain lower risk. But partying, eating and drinking in close contact with others – in bars, in backyards, or even in smaller settings in a house or apartment – not only put you at risk of contracting the virus or transmitting it to others, but also needing to spend time in quarantine as a close contact.
- Avoid unnecessary travel. The point of avoiding travel is to keep our community close and avoid situations where the virus, or its variants, are introduced to the university community by those who travel. Students, this means not traveling with friends for long weekends this semester.
We know we can have a successful semester – and we know that each one of us can do what it takes to make that happen.
Wellness moment and Chaplain’s reflection
Get organized. Now is a great time to make a plan, establish deadlines, and use a planner or calendar to organize your semester ahead. Be sure to incorporate self-care strategies into your plan (e.g., sleep, eating, social connections, exercise, etc).
University Chaplain Jan Fuller’s weekly reflection is offered to help us in our search for meaning during this challenging time – this week’s reflection, “We are Being Transformed,” can be found here on the Truitt Center blog.
Information is updated regularly on the Elon Ready & Resilient website. Questions can be answered at Ready2020@elon.edu and (336) 278-2020. The next weekly COVID-19 update will be sent to all students, faculty and staff at 10:45 a.m. next Wednesday, February 17, unless an earlier message is warranted.
—
Dr. Jon Dooley
Vice President for Student Life