Residential students not expected to “move-in” until the week of September 14
Dear Miami University Community:
Today the Butler County General Health District (BCGHD) and Miami University issued a joint message urging our students to avoid travel and large gatherings this holiday weekend. I want to strongly affirm this message. We have updated our COVID-19 Case Reporting Dashboard with the numbers affecting campus. These numbers continue to reflect a concerning spread in cases in Oxford, and both travel and gatherings put oneself and others at risk, here or in the communities they might visit.
Our ability to have residential students move-in the week of September 14 and to begin our in-person and hybrid classes on September 21 depends on our ability to stop the increasing spread of the virus. This means each of us must comply with all of the Healthy Together standards by wearing face masks; maintaining physical distancing; quarantining or isolating when needed; and avoiding gatherings of 10 persons or more. This is the only way to stop the spread. The health of all of us depends on each of us.
As we look ahead, we are monitoring several key metrics: number of daily positives; positivity rate on surveillance testing; compliance around social distancing and masks in our community; hospitalizations (right now we do not have any); participation in contact tracing; compliance with quarantine and isolation orders and protocols; and our capacity within our community to handle caseloads. Our decision also will depend upon the ability to maintain a healthy workforce to serve our students. As we consider all of these variables, we must also stay mindful of the health and safety of the entire Oxford community.
We continue to take aggressive measures to prevent this pandemic from impacting our plans for the remainder of the semester. Our ability to return to our campuses is directly dependent on individual compliance with our adherence to the Healthy Together standards.
Should we need to make a change to our fall operational plans, we will communicate that no later than Wednesday, September 9.
Letās all do our part to protect our own health and the health of others. I wish to thank our students and families for their patience, our faculty and staff for their commitment, and our alumni and friends for their support. We all want to be Healthy Together and to be together on our campuses.
Love and Honor
Gregory Crawford
