Effective immediately, UC Santa Barbara is requiring all faculty, staff, students and visitors on campus to wear masks in public indoor spaces, regardless of vaccination status, Chancellor Henry T. Yang announced in a campus-wide email Tuesday morning.
Plans to return in person for the fall quarter still remain, according to the email. Photo Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
The mandate follows the Santa Barbara County Public Health Department’s July 19 recommendation that all county residents wear masks in public indoor spaces as a precautionary measure due to rising COVID-19 cases linked to the Delta variant.
The university’s new mask mandate is a precautionary measure against a rise in cases “among members of our campus community” as well as across Santa Barbara County due to the Delta variant, Yang said in the email.
Plans to return in person for the fall quarter still remain, according to the email, and the UC Office of the President Fall Planning Group is continuing to develop further safety protocols to implement in the fall across the UC system.
All non-exempt students, staff and faculty on campus will be required to be vaccinated this fall, following the UC’s July 15 vaccine mandate. The new mask mandate at the university will apply indefinitely to all individuals.
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