Published on October 23, 2020
Dear Researchers,
Many of you may be aware that the alert level on the Danforth Campus was changed from Yellow to Orange today. This change was prompted by a rise in COVID cases in the St. Louis area, which is disturbing news for all of us.
The good news is that cases on our campus continue to be low, and, when people wear masks and stay more than 6 feet apart, we are not seeing transmission or mini-outbreaks in our laboratories or clinical research areas. Therefore, we are not planning to change our research color levels at this time. If we do change research color levels, we will send out a ResearchNews announcing the change, and adjust the color level on the WashU research website.
In order to stay at the yellow level for laboratory and human subjects research, we need to continue to be vigilant about following our public health requirements – density should stay as low as possible in the labs (keep working in shifts), ensure that all workstations occupied during a shift are at least 6 feet apart, and everyone must wear a mask unless they are alone in a room.
I do know that, for many of us, this pandemic and the months of wearing masks, being on zooms, and keeping distant from our colleagues, friends, and family are creating stress and taking a toll on our spirits. Our Human Resources group has created a website describing the resources available to help us.
Let’s keep our cases low and transmission on campus non-existent so that we can continue our important research mission – this effort takes all of us to protect each other.
Best regards,
Jennifer Lodge, PhD
Vice Chancellor for Research