A recent disease management policy statement from the Bates Finance and Administration Office has reinstated a sense of normalcy absent from the Bates community for over three years. Bates has rolled back major COVID-19 protocols, including vaccination and masking requirements for students and the option for professors to require masks in their classes.

Bates had previously required students to provide documentation of a COVID-19 vaccination or request a religious or medical exemption prior to enrollment. Employees were required to disclose their vaccination status but were never required to receive a vaccination against COVID-19.

Other new changes to the Bates COVID-19 policy include requiring employees to use sick days for COVID-19 infection instead of providing additional time off; discontinuing the negative test requirement for outside visitors to campus events; and re-opening campus buildings to the general public.

Bates Health Officials said that their new COVID-19 protocols aligned with policies of other infectious diseases, indicating that the virus is one of “many infectious diseases that can be prudently managed on an ongoing basis.” The changes were part of a longer relaxation of COVID-19 preventative measures, which included the end of biweekly testing for students at the end of the 2021-2022 academic year and the end of indoor mask mandates.

However, the new changes were enacted in May 2023, just before a sharp increase in both the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in the past three months. A recent variant, EG.5 (Eris), is estimated to be responsible for about 27% of cases in the first two weeks of September, according to the CDC. 

While the World Health Organization (WHO) evaluates the variant as “low risk at the global level,” it has already impacted Bates campus life. Cora Zuwallack ’27 tested positive and experienced mild symptoms compared to their “far more severe” case two years ago that caused a 103˚F fever. Zuwallack described the symptoms from their recent case: “they were so mild, I didn’t think I could even have it, but I still bought a test.” 

Though cases mostly remain mild for healthy individuals, contracting COVID-19 as a member of an at-risk population still threatens more severe symptoms and hospitalization, according to a recent statement by the CDC.

Bates Health Officials now treat the pandemic as an endemic, or regularly occurring virus, and state that the college “is not currently reconsidering vaccination policies or further restrictions than are currently in place.” Bates will follow updates from the CDC and other public health experts to advise its policy.