June 20: Suspending our mask requirement on June 30

To: University of Waterloo graduate students

From: Vivek Goel, President and Vice-Chancellor
James W.E. Rush, Vice-President, Academic & Provost

Subject: Suspending our mask requirement on June 30

Suspending our mask requirement on June 30

As you are aware, on March 22, the province lifted its mandatory masking requirement in most settings, with the remaining requirements in high-risk settings like health care ending on June 11. The Region of Waterloo also lifted its requirements for masking on public transportation and at customer service centres on June 11, in alignment with the province’s announcement.

On April 14, in consultation with public health advisors and other post-secondary institutions, we announced that we would extend our campus mask requirement to create a transition period past the end of the winter term and through the in-person Spring convocation ceremonies to minimize potential operational disruption under the circumstances at the time.  We committed to revaluating the requirement after convocation.

Today, we’re making the decision to suspend our mask requirement after June 30. In addition to the lifting of provincial and municipal mask requirements noted above, this decision  is also consistent with a variety of indicators including campus data, case counts, test positivity rates, local hospitalization and wastewater data, and consulting public health guidance.

Though the trends right now allow us to remove the requirement for everyone to wear a mask, we encourage you to continue to wear a tight-fitting, well-constructed mask if you feel it is the right choice for you, in any setting. We particularly encourage you to consider continuing to wear a mask in large gatherings like classrooms or at exams. 

We’ve all seen the value of wearing a mask to help limit the spread of a variety of diseases from COVID-19 to the common cold. Wearing a mask is a good way to show you are being considerate of the people around you. Please respect the choices of others in our community who may wish to continue to wear a mask. 

Physical distancing or capacity limits are not required under current public health guidance. 

As always, we’ll keep this decision under careful review and we may choose to bring back a requirement to wear a mask to come to our campuses if public health conditions change. 

Of course, if you have symptoms of COVID-19 or think you were exposed to the virus you should do the Ontario self-assessment to get advice on what to do and whether you should stay home.

Sincerely,

Vivek Goel
President and Vice-Chancellor

James W. E. Rush
Vice-President, Academic & Provost

 Our best defence against the consequences of COVID-19 remains vaccination. We encourage you to get the vaccine doses that you are eligible for. The unpredictable nature of the COVID-19 virus means we are continuing to collect up-to-date proof of vaccination data in case we need to bring back a requirement to be vaccinated to come to campus. If you haven’t done so already, please make sure you keep your vaccination information current with Campus Checkin (https://campuscheckin.uwaterloo.ca).

You may have already submitted proof of vaccination prior to May 1, 2022. However, our new Campus Check-in tool utilizes the QR code on your valid Canadian or Ontario vaccination certificate.