Campus Update — Guidance for Events and Face Coverings

Published Feb 16, 2022 by
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Thank you for your patience and persistence in staying the course with us during this nearly two-year pandemic. It is your commitment to protecting yourselves and our community that has helped reduce our risk. Based on input from ECU and UNC medical experts and improvements in campus cases and vaccination rates, we are taking the first step in reducing restrictions on campus.

The following face covering and gathering requirements will become effective Monday, Feb. 21. These requirements are similar to the fall 2021 plan implemented before cases increased.

  • Gatherings can include food and drinks outdoors or indoors where space is available for social distancing. Gatherings should be held in spaces large enough to easily accommodate social distancing of at least three feet.
  • Face coverings are required in the following indoor situations to protect our community as we continue to monitor campus and local community case numbers, positivity rates and hospital capacity:
    • Classrooms, teaching laboratories, studios, and other spaces where instruction occurs, unless a safety plan has been submitted and an approved exception has been issued,
    • Health care settings,
    • ECU Transit, and
    • Any indoor setting where social distancing of at least three feet cannot be maintained.
  • On ECU’s campus, no face covering is required outdoors. However, all unvaccinated individuals are encouraged to wear a face covering when social distancing of at least three feet cannot be maintained.

Outside of the requirements outlined above, face coverings are considered optional.

Also, beginning March 1, surveillance testing for students will be conducted by Student Health Services at the following locations and times:

  • Main Campus Student Center, Room 125; Monday-Friday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
  • Todd and West Dining Halls; Monday-Friday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
  • Health Sciences Student Center, Tuesday and Thursday, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Human Resources will directly contact unvaccinated employees enrolled in the surveillance testing program later this week regarding changes to testing locations and times.

Our willingness to wear masks and get vaccinated helped reduce cases and bring our positivity rate to less than 5%. On-campus risk is relatively low with a well vaccinated population (77%) and risk criteria that are declining rapidly. The COVID Coordination Committee will continue to monitor key risk criteria and make recommendations accordingly.

Continue to be respectful of differing views and choices. People may choose to wear face coverings to better protect themselves and others for many reasons. Please support one another and follow the ECU Code of Conduct as we work together to reduce this pandemic to endemic status.

This is a first step, but our work together is not over. We expect that our continued effort will result in additional progress to bring us back to the campus experience we all enjoy and expect.

We are grateful for your commitment to this process of fighting the pandemic by following our Return of Pirate Nation plan to reduce our risk. We have more to do, but we are making progress and will continue to achieve success together.

Go Pirates!

— Bill Koch, co-chair of the COVID Coordination Committee and associate vice chancellor for campus safety and auxiliary services
— Sara Lilley, co-chair of the COVID Coordination Committee and assistant vice chancellor for HR, talent management