Humberto Mendez Prince/Staff Writer
After a year-long hiatus caused by the pandemic, in-person classes came in full session this week at FIU. This decision was taken into consideration of the decline in the number of infections during the first half of the year.
However, during the summer of this year, the newest and most contagious Delta variant of the COVID-19 virus has been spreading across the county causing much concern but then again not a lot of action from FIU officials.
What needs to be acknowledged is the visible effort the university has been making by making campus grounds and installations safer with the implementation of mask vending machines, disinfectant centers, they even created an app to keep track of potential infections among students, and the most recent effort to vaccinate people by the university offering students $150 only if they decide to get the shot.
As mentioned earlier, the efforts towards holding the virus are in plain sight. However, the reality is that that’s all there is to it, the fact that an effort might be visible to some doesn’t imply that actual positive results are coming from it, which is the case here. What FIU is currently doing is simply not enough to hold the virus, the main reason being the substantial increase in cases in Florida in the past few months which causes all attempts of normalization on part of the government and university officials to be null.
FIU officials are doing everything they can to hold the spread of the virus within University grounds but life outside campus is different, the Delta variant has impregnated itself in the streets of Miami causing an average of 2,800 cases daily so it’s inevitable that a rise in infected students occurs in the upcoming weeks, on the other hand, certain mandates by FIU officials seem contradictory considering the common goal for everybody is to hold the virus spread.
The most contradictory has to be the optional use of masks within University grounds and in classrooms, and although students seem to be using masks inside classrooms, for the most part, the situation outside seems to be the total opposite, recently Greek life hosted an event which saw hundreds of students without masks gathered and no FIU official has bothered to make a comment on it yet. Again, this seems contradictory considering the new variant is already here in South Florida with thousands of cases reported daily.
It’s no use for the university to implement all these changes such as symptom tracking apps and mask vending machines when at the same time they’re allowing these gatherings to occur without proper health measures. At this point, it’s obvious the stance the university is taking is a non-confrontational one and it’s understandable since is not favorable for FIU to be submerged in controversy at all times but as an institution, the university should consider implementing stronger health procedures since the ones affected by the current sluggish measures will be the students.
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Photo by FIU Flickr
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