Covid-19 – WINAHEAD

Covid-19 Guidance for Higher Education Institutions

On June 4, 2021, the CDC issued updated guidance for institutions of higher education. The full guidance document is available at https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/colleges-universities/considerations.html.

Key Points

This guidance supplements and does not replace any federal, state, tribal, local, or territorial health and safety laws, rules, and regulations with which IHEs must comply.

This guidance provides resources that IHE administrators can use to prevent the spread of COVID-19 among students, faculty, and staff during the COVID-19 pandemic.
IHE administrators can help protect students, faculty, and staff and slow the spread of COVID-19, by encouraging vaccinations and using CDC’s Guidance for IHEs.
IHEs can help increase vaccine uptake among students, faculty, and staff by providing information about COVID-19 vaccination, promoting vaccine trust and confidence, and establishing supportive policies and practices that make getting vaccinated as easy and convenient as possible.
IHEs where all students, faculty, and staff are fully vaccinated prior to the start of the semester can return to full capacity in-person learning, without requiring or recommending masking or physical distancing for people who are fully vaccinated in accordance with CDC’s Interim Public Health Recommendations for Fully Vaccinated People.
IHEs where not everyone is fully vaccinated will have a mixed population of both people who are fully vaccinated and people who are not fully vaccinated on campus which requires decision making to protect the people who are not fully vaccinated.

In addition, on May 28, 2021, the CDC has updated its guidance for people who are fully vaccinated. See Recommendations for Fully Vaccinated People.

Tracking Covid-19

Tracking Coronavirus in Nebraska

If you are looking for a resource that can be used to track Covid-19 cases in Nebraska, visit this site maintained by the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).

Coronavirus COVID-19 Nebraska Cases by the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services

Additional resources and information can be found at the DHHS Coronavirus page. DHHS Coronavirus Disease Page

National Coronavirus Tracking

Interested in a national view? Visit this site maintained by Johns Hopkins University. Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center

Data at the Johns Hopkins site is updated once per day to allow the system to pull county-level data. For the most up-to-date confirmed cases and deaths, please see the COVID-19 Global Map.

Covid-19 – An Open Letter to Parents

Elsewhere, at this site, at the Parent Resources page, is the original letter, written by Jane Jarrow, a professional who has worked with students with disabilities at the college level for more than 30 years. Jarrow wrote this letter as a parent – to other parents, as someone who shared all their anxieties about their child with a disability going off to college.

Jarrow recently reviewed the letter to determine if it still had relevance in this time of Covid-19. Everything in the letter remains true and useful, but it benefited from the addition of some information appropriate to this pandemic period. Just as disability service providers are facing a steep learning curve in doing what needs to be done to support students during the COVID-19 crisis, parents will face new challenges, as well.

Below is the COVID-19 version of that “Open Letter to Parents.” To access the full letter, click on the image below.