Campus health and safety for January

As we near the end of the current term, the university is aware of the evolving situation with COVID-19.

While we are planning to continue with in-person activities in January, UVic leaders are actively consulting across the sector, with public health officials and with the Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Training to determine if we need to make any necessary adjustments to our spring term programming, our prevention measures or both.

To that end, we are expecting clear public health direction and guidance later this week.

Our sector-wide, public health-informed approach to structuring the learning and working environment has served us well throughout the pandemic and is one of the primary reasons why we have not had any cases of COVID-19 transmission in our classrooms for 22 months.

In fact, the combination of a highly vaccinated population and core prevention measures has resulted in few cases and very little transmission across the entire post-secondary sector in BC.

What is clear is that community transmission is occurring off campus in indoor social events and personal gatherings with few or no COVID-19 prevention measures in place.

This explains why the new public health measures that went into effect today were focused on indoor personal gatherings and events.

We encourage all members of our community to follow the new orders as you celebrate this season, including continuing to wear a mask, staying home when sick, getting tested as needed and, most importantly, getting fully vaccinated.

We thank you for your patience and understanding while we work with our post-secondary and public health colleagues to make system-wide decisions that are proportionate to the evolving circumstances.

We recognize that many of our instructors are planning their January courses now, and that the sooner we can confirm or provide clarity on our direction to the campus community, the better.

We will share the public health guidance once it is received, keep you updated of any developments and will notify you as soon as possible if there are any changes. Continue to refer to the UVic COVID-19 website for the latest information.

Thank you,

Susan Lewis and Kane Kilbey
Co-chairs, UVic COVID-19 Transition Team