SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — There will be a complete return to normal for Missouri State University in the fall of 2022.
President Clif Smart announced via his newsletter Tuesday that all COVID-19 policies involving students will be expiring by the end of finals week, May 20th.
It has students reaching the end of what felt like a rollercoaster when it comes to dealing with COVID-19 on campus.
From massive case surges to required masking and testing, students will now get to experience the pre-pandemic college experience.
OzarksFirst spoke with students Tuesday about how they feel about the return to normal.
“It was hard because we had to wear masks pretty much everywhere,” said Lucy Lueke.
“So if I want to do laundry, I had to wear a mask. That wasn’t fun,” added Natalie Stubblefield.
Jacey Dixon tells us she doesn’t feel she missed out on anything her freshman year, saying, “They’re still doing everything, We have our games, and it’s honestly not too bad.”
Beginning Friday, Missouri State University will no longer be requiring masking in clinics on campus.
Students will no longer be required to be tested for COVID-19 before returning to campus each semester.
The University will also be removing its COVID-19 dashboard and daily case counts from its website.
According to the dashboard, Missouri State has had roughly five to ten cases of COVID-19 each week for the last eight weeks.
This compares to upwards of nearly 200 cases in one week during the Omicron surge in January.
“Once we got through that, By the middle of February, we’ve really seen just extremely low cases. So what we’ve seen is there’s really not a need to continue with it,” said David Hall, Director of University Safety at MSU.
Hall said there are still triggers in place to ramp up policies again if rising cases warrant new mitigating measures.
“It’s very much a relief to see where we’re at now. And then again, the hopes we, first of all, recognize that you know, we’re not out of it. We’ll see some increase and things like that. But you know, hopefully, it’s not to the point that we would need to revert back to some of those more significant things that we’ve had to do before,” added Hall.
The only COVID-19 policy that will remain at MSU for the next few weeks is paid sick leave for staff who contract the virus.
Hall said all commencement ceremonies held on campus Friday will be just as they were pre-pandemic. There will be no restrictions in place for graduates or visitors.
