Today, Professor Nasiri sent out an email announcing In-Person lab instruction to begin starting tomorrow, Tuesday, January 11th, with a mere one day notice. As UC Davis students and community, we believe that such in-person instruction is unsafe for all those involved. Given that lectures are provided remotely, in addition to online labs and systems being already in place, there is no excuse for any student to be forced to put their life and health on the line. Additionally, given the last-minute nature of the email, and despite having announced that labs would be online on January 6th, many students are ill-prepared for labs that are potentially starting tomorrow. This includes a lack of 100% cotton lab coats that have been out of stock for over a week at the student store and the unavailability of appointments for COVID-19 PCR tests on and off-campus.

These mandatory In-person labs only perpetuate the spread of COVID-19, which is the exact opposite of what UC Davis needs to do to accommodate students and put the community's health as their main priority. Nonetheless, it is important to note the immense rise of COVID-19 cases in not only the Davis community and the long-lasting impact it such instruction could have on students' and families' lives.

• UC Davis positivity rates have reached the highest yet during the pandemic--with a 4.68% of the UC Davis population positive for COVID-19
• As of January 11th, all isolation dorms provided by UC Davis are full--leaving many COVID-19 positive students left to their own devices and possibly spreading the infection to dorm or roommates.
• Despite that symptoms of COVID-19 may be mild to some, it is important to consider the risk of long-haul COVID side-effects in addition to life-threatening symptoms that could potentially result in death for some immunocompromised individuals.

We demand that Nasiri's CHE8B class offer students the choice to complete labs online or in-person (known as the hybrid approach). We as a community are already filled with anxiety about contracting COVID-19, and being put in such a risky situation only worsens our fears. It is important that we as a community take all precautions necessary and avoid all unnecessary contact that can easily be replaced with online labs until COVID-19 numbers are at a safe, stabilized rate.