BREAKING: Cornell Drops Mask Mandate— Again

After more than two full years of COVID restrictions, Cornell University has finally relaxed its mask policy. Following a partial rollback of the year-long mask mandate in the spring, face coverings remained obligatory in classrooms and on TCAT. Despite raising the COVID alert level to yellow not two weeks following the March 11 announcement, Cornell remained steadfast in “requesting” instead of requiring masks.

Now, even the university-wide classroom mask mandate has been dropped. As Provost Mike Kotlikoff wrote in an email to the Cornell community this afternoon, “Masks will be strongly encouraged, but are not required, in classrooms … we are also asking students to respect requests from instructors to wear a mask.”

Similar to the administration’s admonitions in the spring, the “requests” Kotlikoff alludes to are not qualified with consequences for noncompliance. Just as Cornell “expected” students to test upon arrival and departure from Ithaca in February, now “all students should take an at-home antigen test” before returning.

This news comes as universities across the country are struggling to define their COVID policies for the coming year. Even among the Ivy League, policies range from a complete relaxation at Harvard to continued classroom mandates at Columbia. Elsewhere in Tompkins County, Ithaca College continues to mandate masks in very select circumstances.

Masks, however, are not the only COVID mainstay to be unceremoniously axed by the administration this afternoon. Cornell’s many PCR testing sites—such as the occupation of the former reading room of Willard Straight Hall—will be closed permanently on August 31st, though antigen tests will still be available. The end of PCR testing sites likely also heralds the conclusion of surveillance testing for the entire student body, and therefore the end of COVID alert levels as well.

In the place of surveillance testing, the Daily Check system has been adapted to “provide … academic support” and “temporary accommodations” for missing class during recovery from COVID-19.  Kotlikoff’s Wednesday announcement also brings the end of relocations for COVID-positive students. No longer will students who live on campus and test positive be sent to hotels around Ithaca; rather, students who test positive should “Isolate in [their] residence hall or apartment” while roommates can relocate “at their own expense.”

Thus seemingly ends more than two years of confounding policy from Day Hall. While the new regulations are opaque—a signature of Cornell’s COVID rules from the beginning—the end is clearly in sight. Given the administration’s steadiness since March 11, TCAT will now be the only part of daily life at Cornell to universally require masks. Public transit masking remains mandated courtesy of New York State, not Cornell.

However, Cornell’s silence on the consequences of delinquency, both regarding the new arrival and departure testing rules and professor mask requests, will likely result in little change for many students.