{"id":2041,"date":"2021-05-24T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-24T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/blogtest\/may-24-2021-update-on-ending-masks-and-distancing-requirements\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T15:12:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T20:12:10","slug":"may-24-2021-update-on-ending-masks-and-distancing-requirements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/may-24-2021-update-on-ending-masks-and-distancing-requirements\/","title":{"rendered":"MAY 24, 2021: Update on ending masks and distancing requirements"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

To the University community,<\/p>\n

Effective immediately, and in accordance with guidance from federal and state public health officials, I am removing campus mandates for the wearing of masks, maintaining social distancing and observing modified COVID-19 room capacities. However, masks will still be required on public transportation, such as Raider XPress, and for symptomatic patients (i.e., those with flu-like, or coronavirus-like, symptoms) in our Student Health Services facility.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Current guidelines from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) state that vaccinated people do not need to wear a face mask or practice social distancing. Given the ready supply of vaccine available to the campus, as well as throughout the state and nation, we believe members of our community can make informed and individual choices about their health and safety, including appropriate actions and measures they should take to protect themselves from COVID-19.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The CDC states that vaccines reduce the risk of people spreading COVID-19 and they also note it is effective at preventing COVID-19 disease, especially severe illness and death. The CDC defines \u201cfully vaccinated\u201d as 14 days past your final dose.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However, if you are not fully vaccinated, we strongly recommend you wear a mask and practice social distancing for your protection. Also, anyone may choose to wear a mask.<\/span><\/p>\n

Crews will begin work this week to remove or modify coronavirus-related signage on campus.<\/span><\/p>\n

Visit the CDC\u2019s website to learn more about ways you can protect yourself from the coronavirus:\u00a0https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/coronavirus\/2019-nCoV\/index.html<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Also you can contact Student Health Services at this website to schedule a vaccination:\u00a0https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/healthservices\/<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

I deeply appreciate the spirit of cooperation put forth by the University community during these difficult times to Defend True Blue.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Sincerely,
<\/span>Sidney A. McPhee
<\/span>President
<\/span>Sidney.McPhee@mtsu.edu<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To the University community, Effective immediately, and in accordance with guidance from federal and state public health officials, I am removing campus mandates for the wearing of masks, maintaining social distancing and observing modified COVID-19 room capacities. However, masks will still be required on public transportation, such as Raider XPress, and for symptomatic patients (i.e., […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":466,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2041"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3131,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2041\/revisions\/3131"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}