{"id":10227,"date":"2022-02-18T14:31:18","date_gmt":"2022-02-18T20:31:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/news\/?p=10227"},"modified":"2022-02-18T14:31:18","modified_gmt":"2022-02-18T20:31:18","slug":"masks-encouraged-no-longer-required-on-mwsu-campus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/news\/2022\/02\/18\/masks-encouraged-no-longer-required-on-mwsu-campus\/","title":{"rendered":"Masks encouraged, no longer required on MWSU campus"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Feb. 18, 2022&#8211;Effective immediately, face coverings are encouraged but no longer required in all indoor spaces on the campus of Missouri Western State University.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cThis University masking policy change reflects several indicators reviewed by the COVID-19 Response Team every week,\u201d said Dr. Elizabeth Kennedy, Missouri Western\u2019s president, in an email to campus. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen both the positivity rates and the number of positive cases decline on campus and for Buchanan county. Additionally, we\u2019ve seen the same decreasing trend in the local hospitalization rates.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Masks are recommended for those who are unvaccinated and\/or have underlying health concerns.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The University continues to encourage COVID-19 vaccination and will host another <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/missouriwestern21722.timetap.com\/#\/\" class=\"broken_link\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">vaccine clinic<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> with Heart to Heart International on Thursday, February 24.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The COVID-19 Response Team will continue to meet weekly to review data and adjust mitigation strategies, including the campus face covering policy, as warranted. The team reviews campus and community vaccination rates, positivity rates, and local hospitalization rates, among other data points, and is continually guided by the best available science-based evidence and expert recommendations in order to make informed decisions about campus activities.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Missouri Western State University is a student-centered learning community preparing individuals for lives of excellence through applied learning. Missouri Western is located in St. Joseph, Mo., and is committed to the educational, economic, cultural and social development of the region it serves. Visit <\/span><\/i><a href=\"http:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">missouriwestern.edu<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Feb. 18, 2022&#8211;Effective immediately, face coverings are encouraged but no longer required in all indoor spaces on the campus of Missouri Western State University.\u00a0 \u201cThis University masking policy change reflects several indicators reviewed by the COVID-19 Response Team every week,\u201d said Dr. Elizabeth Kennedy, Missouri Western\u2019s president, in an email to campus. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen both [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[48],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10227"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10227"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10228,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10227\/revisions\/10228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}