(The Center Square) – Students, faculty, staff and visitors of the University of Maine System are being required to wear face coverings while inside any university building.
The new mandate extends through Sept. 30, but it could be extended. Previously, indoor face coverings were optional for anyone who was vaccinated.
Face coverings are optional outside, but officials strongly encourage them for anyone participating in large group gatherings or in crowded conditions where maintaining physical distance is challenging.
“While we’re still in a pandemic, Maine remains a place with among the lowest number of COVID-19 cases and transmission in the nation,” Chancellor Dannel P. Malloy wrote in an update.
“We have significant confidence that we can be together safely on our campuses this fall because safe and effective COVID vaccines are readily available,” Malloy added. “That’s why we are requiring, with appropriate limited exceptions, proof of vaccination to participate in in-person experiences on our campuses.”
The University of Maine System is exploring extending the vaccination requirement to all employees and is discussing the possibility with “labor partners.”
“With our classrooms and other indoor spaces no longer set up to impose social distancing, face coverings are an important strategy we can employ to effectively control the transmission of COVID, regardless of an individual’s vaccination status and testing participation,” Malloy wrote. “The public health and epidemiological science on this point is irrefutable, and we will therefore responsibly wear face coverings indoors until we are certain it is no longer necessary to do so.”
Bates College in Lewiston announced a similar mandate. Everyone must wear a mask indoors while on campus with limited exceptions, such as in residence halls.
“Our high vaccination rate for the campus community as a whole – approximately 95% based on current numbers – has allowed us to plan for a year of in-person campus experiences that we all deeply value, in the areas of classes, Commons, athletics, events, programming, clubs, and organizations,” Joshua McIntosh, vice president for campus life, wrote in an update. “Unfortunately, however, the current spread of the highly transmissible delta variant means that we need to put in place some temporary public health measures as we begin the fall semester.”