As Covid Cases Fall, Colleges Are Relaxing Restrictions. But Experts Urge Caution.

Colleges, like much of the rest of the country, are loosening their public health protocols as Covid-19 cases fall after a surge from the Omicron variant.

Institutions large and small are slowly moving toward a pre-pandemic normal as case numbers continue to drop.

Experts cautioned that colleges should be careful about how they alter their safety restrictions. “I think we have to be careful,” said Gerri Taylor, co-chair of the Covid-19 task force for the American College Health Association. “I think we have to be thoughtful and intentional about what we do when we decide to lift our mitigation practices that we’ve had in place.”

Kaye Bender, president of the American Public Health Association, noted the importance of institutions working with local health departments to understand their situations specifically as they make plans to change protocols. “We’re not in a cookie-cutter situation right now,” Bender said. “We’re in a situation where what it might be OK to do in one part of the country, or in one state, might vary significantly in the next state.”