In order to return to fully in-person classes at Cal Poly, SLO, students were not asked to be Covid tested before returning to classes on Jan. 3rd. Students were only able to start getting tested on the second day of full instruction when many professors, instructors, and ISA/TA's have decided to go fully virtually for at least the first two weeks out of a 10 week quarter, aka 1/5 of the quarter or 20%.

Jan 5th, 2022 had nearly 704,369 new Covid-19 cases in the USA according to a quick search on Google. For Cal Poly, according to the campus' dashboard found here https://coronavirus.calpoly.edu/dashboard; 53/56 isolation beds are taken up, with positive cases the highest it has ever been as reported on 1/3/2022, the first day of the academic quarter reporting both symptomatic and asymptomatic cases. Positive cases both for on and off-campus students are also at an all-time high the first day as well. As shown by the first graph on this page as well 12/28/2021 saw an all-time high of 14.7% positive cases and 1/3/2022 saw a 7% increase in cases when most students have returned. For some perspective during the Fall quarter dates, the percentage was rarely if never above 2%.

We have been in a pandemic for two years now, and we believe as Mustangs we were virtual once and we can be virtual again and still maintain our famous motto of "Learn by Doing" for the sake of our students, faculty, friends, and family members. We ask for the school to consider a remote or quarter or option for these next 10 weeks for the safety of everyone.