Archive: Fall 2022 Open Letter to Chancellor Mnookin
A call for improved COVID policies, delivered to University of Wisconsin Chancellor Mnookin on 8/4/2022
Open letter to Chancellor Mnookin and UW-Madison COVID response team
View the letter in Google Docs
Timeline
8/4/2022 - We delivered the open letter to the chancellor
8/16/22 - Chancellor Mnookin addressed our open letter
8/24/22 - We published an op-ed in response
9/15/22 - We launched an air quality lending library: https://bit.ly/uwairquality
11/3/22 - We published a warning about winter transmission
11/14/22 - We delivered this letter to the chancellor at the Diversity Forum
Signees total 209 (including groups and individuals) at the time of this posting on 4/23/2023
[This letter was sent on August 4th, 2022 to Chancellor Mnookin. While the policies at UCLA have changed, the UCLA policies from 2021-2022 provide a model for better policies that are possible. We would also like to note that the majority of signees joined the letter in August 2022, prior to the addition of footnotes.]
Dear Chancellor Mnookin,
We first want to welcome you to UW-Madison!
We are a group of workers and concerned community members, writing to share our concerns about the health risks posed by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and urge equitable policies to maximize safety of all those in our campus community. We are particularly concerned for members of our community who are most vulnerable, including those who are immunocompromised; those with disabilities; elders; those with long COVID symptoms; those with vulnerable family members; and those from communities already hardest hit by the pandemic. We would also like to emphasize that long COVID is a common outcome from COVID infection that should concern everyone: the CDC has found that 1 in 5 COVID infections are resulting in long COVID (1, 2), with other researchers finding that vaccination offers little protection against long COVID, and that the risk for long COVID and other post-COVID health events such as heart attack and stroke increases with each reinfection. We are concerned that in the absence of stronger COVID protections, some students may not have access to attending UW-Madison. Some of us do not feel safe working and learning on our campus.
In keeping with the spirit of the Wisconsin Idea, reduction of COVID transmission on campus can reduce the spread of COVID in the wider community. As outlined below, we urge maintaining or returning to successful COVID policies implemented at UW-Madison, and strengthening these measures. As you're coming from UCLA, we'd like to point out places where better, safer policies were implemented there, and encourage you to bring those policies to UW-Madison with you. We urge you to require use of high-quality, well-fit masks indoors on campus, improve indoor air ventilation and filtration, require COVID vaccinations and boosters, and return to requirements that those not up to date with vaccinations be regularly tested. We regard it as a core principle that those who do not have to work on campus should be given flexibility to continue to work at home, and that those who are not able to work remotely are protected to the best of our ability.
We appreciate extensive efforts by many on our campus to address the challenges of the pandemic and provide a high-quality educational experience for our students. We enthusiastically support the free vaccination program, and encourage expanded access to the wider Madison community and the uninsured; distribution of high-quality masks and rapid COVID tests; and PCR testing on campus. We're very grateful for the workers running these systems. But our testing has dropped to unsafe levels; compare the decline in spring testing numbers for our campus with those from UCLA. We urge a return to indoor mask policies and masking on bus routes that our community uses. Considering the potential for lingering impacts of even mild COVID cases that can have major impacts on the quality of life for members of our community, and the increased transmissibility of current variants, we believe more should be done.
We understand the Wisconsin Legislature has discouraged our university from making good public health choices. We have a moral obligation to protect all our immunocompromised and at-risk community members.
Our main concern is people with health needs: we want those people to be protected as best we can. We are concerned for at-risk students and community members. As stated in a recent letter by National Nurses United, “study after study indicates that long COVID poses a serious threat to public health, leading to neurodegeneration, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and damage to other organ systems.” We urge reducing the risks of long COVID by reducing COVID transmission on campus. According to recent news, UW-Madison has chosen to not require students and staff to test upon return this fall: we believe this is a dangerous choice.
Public health is a collective endeavor, it cannot be accomplished by emphasizing individual responsibility alone. We urge UW-Madison to implement an expanded, comprehensive mitigation approach that builds on successful UW-Madison policies and implements additional protective measures like those currently in place at UCLA and outlined in the UCLA Table of Mitigation Recommendations and Requirements and UCLA COVID 19 Prevention Program for Workplaces. Specifically, these include the following:
Indoor air quality assessments and mitigation through comprehensive testing of office and classroom spaces and through improvements in ventilation, filtration, and disinfection. The importance of improvements in indoor air quality and recommended mitigation steps are found on page 3 of the recent guidelines from the American College Health Association. (Compare UCLA with UW-Madison.)
Specific public guidelines that tie mitigation efforts to public health metrics for COVID-19 and monkeypox (see UCLA's pivot plan document)
Require use of well-fitting masks indoors and on campus transit
Improved testing program, with requirement or strong encouragement of at least weekly surveillance testing to understand public health situation on our campus
Maintain campus availability of COVID vaccines and instate vaccine requirements, with required testing for those not fully up to date with vaccinations
Require daily symptom monitoring for all who are on-campus
Improved accommodations for disabled workers and students
Remote access for anyone who needs it for work, study, and instruction
Educate the campus community about the risks of long COVID and provide health care and support for members of our community experiencing long COVID symptoms
Paid COVID sick leave
Isolation and quarantine support for students with COVID
We would love to meet with you and your team to discuss the campus COVID response in more detail, and likewise encourage you to seek input from other members of our campus community, especially from those in groups at greatest risk from COVID. Over the past few years, we feel the public health responses from leadership at all levels have not been strong enough. If we really want to "return to normal," we must expand and strengthen our pandemic response. We believe UW-Madison has an obligation to follow the Wisconsin Idea and continue to find more ways to improve COVID-19 safety for our campus and the wider Madison community. We can do so much more for the fall 2022 semester with your leadership.
Sincerely,