In an announcement on the evening of Friday, December 31, the president Gregory Washington announced that the university will open as planned tomorrow, January 3rd, despite the record-breaking COVID surge that the DC region is experiencing.

President Washington also announced that students, staff and faculty alike are being required to get their booster as soon as possible. However, there are many who will not qualify until a month from now in February. Additionally, workers that are being expected to return to work tomorrow have only had a weekend's notice to get their booster shot. As booster shot side effects may take a few days to subside, it is unclear if many of the workers with no option to work remotely were considered in this decision from the university. 

According to DCist, hospitalizations in DC are at their highest since the start of the pandemic. Throughout the commonwealth of Virginia, hospitals are under a strain amidst the surge of the omicron variant. 

For the safety of the entire Mason community and the surrounding areas, I ask that you continue to share this petition widely. We must demand that the university make a decision for the health and safety of our community sooner rather than later. 

Thank you for the continuous support so far! It's great to see how many signatures we've gained since the start of this petition just 4 days ago.