In the middle of Week 2 of our winter quarter, President John Fry and the Drexel Return Oversight Committee sent out an email to students and staff sharing that they plan to have us return for in person learning next week. This decision puts the entirety of students and faculty at risk and leaves them with no other choice.

While Omicron stands as the dominant variant, symptoms for most fully vaccinated individuals remain mostly mild as they consist of congestion, fatigue, sore throat, and coughing which are similar to a head cold but can still have long term effects that we are unaware of. Just because we are young and fully vaccinated, it does not make it impossible for us to get severely ill from the virus. The University seems to be "handling" the situation by letting students and staff contract the virus and get sick within the first two weeks of the quarter, so that we will all be past it by Week 3. As of the week of January 3rd to January 9th, our positivity percentage for COVID-19 is 17.64% which is nearly 3x worse than it was last month. The group of individuals getting tested is just a fraction of the entire population of Drexel, so it is likely there are many more positive cases that remain unrecorded.

In this unsafe time, Drexel does not even allow the students or staff a choice in this decision, even though we are the ones directly impacted by this. Regardless of concerns for their health, students are being forced to attend in person classes that range from 15 to 200+ students in an enclosed classroom space. In these tight spaces, there are still many students who do not wear face masks properly, and they are not corrected by the professors. This adds to the stress and increase risk of infection that other students are already facing, especially those of which who have compromised immune systems. In addition, last fall, Drexel told students who feel sick not to attend classes, but never provided a virtual option, leaving sick students the option to fall behind or to come to class sick.

We are asking that John Fry and the Drexel Return Oversight Committee, at the bare minimum, allows the students and staff a choice of options for their education. We ask that classes are kept remote for a longer period of time, as most local universities are already doing (UPenn, Temple, Rutgers), or at the very least the classes that are not crucial to be taught in person.