Will SU ever transition out of the ‘Red’ level of mask-wearing?

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On Aug. 13, Syracuse University adopted a four-tier COVID-19 alert system and masking requirements for students, employees and visitors. 

The university has been enforcing its four campus COVID-19 alert system, which is broken into four colored levels — “GREEN,” “YELLOW,” “BLUE” and “RED” — with different masking requirements for each level. 

SU changes its masking requirements based on rates of new infection, testing data and contact tracing information for the campus and local community, said Mike Haynie, the vice chancellor for strategic initiatives and innovation, in a campus-wide email.

The campus level changed from “BLUE” to “RED” on Saturday, Aug. 28 — right before classes started on the following Monday. Under this “RED” mandate, those who are unvaccinated and vaccinated must wear a mask indoors and outdoors in the presence of others. 

Megan Thompson | Design Editor

As of Oct. 13, SU is still under the “RED” alert level.

It is uncertain, however, at what point the university changes the level or whether changes are based on campus or county COVID-19 infection, testing or contact tracing data. When SU was at the “BLUE” level on Aug. 23, just a week before it switched to “RED,” the university had a total of 12 active cases. A little over a week later, when students attended their first day of classes at a RED level, there were 31 active cases on campus. 

Active COVID-19 cases that SU reported continued to climb until they reached their peak on Sept. 13 and 15 at 163 cases. After that, there has been a steady decline in the number of active cases. On Oct. 13, SU reported 36 active cases on its dashboard, the fewest active cases since Sept. 1.

Megan Thompson | Design Editor

SU switched to a COVID-19 alert level of “RED” three days after Onondaga County was classified as having a “high” rate of COVID-19 transmission. Sometimes, SU’s COVID-19 active case dashboard rises and falls with Onondaga County’s new case dashboard. But this is not always the case. On Sept. 20, SU had 112 active cases and Onondaga County had 85 new cases. However, on Sept. 27, SU’s active cases dropped to 44 and Onondaga’s new cases skyrocketed to 276. 

Throughout these fluctuations, SU remained under the “RED” alert level.