Targeted protection level on campus

The Vice-Chancellor and the Chair of Council have taken the decision to move to the Targeted level of COVID-19 protection from Monday 13 September. This change in protection level has been carefully considered and forms part of our move back towards campus life, allowing more activity to take place on our campuses and for a more targeted approach to keeping our community COVID secure.

The University’s protection levels are set out in our University COVID-19 Business Continuity Plan. The plan sets out four different levels of protection – Advanced (the most stringent), Enhanced, Sustained and Targeted.

Targeted Protection allows many on-campus activities to resume, by focusing specific safety measures where they are most needed, as well as allowing us to redirect restrictions and support quickly, if required. Within this phase we can start to invite an increasing number of staff back to campus and can be ready to welcome as many students as possible back to our campuses for the beginning of the new term.

Our premises policy and guidance has been updated to assist in the planning and delivery of on-campus activities and teaching. We are, however, offering a degree of flexibility to those students who are unable to join us on campus for the beginning of term and have launched a remote study request form that registered students can complete to alert their department of their need to study remotely for the first few weeks of term.

Targeted Protection means we will continue with certain measures to protect our community, focusing on particular groups or individuals that may be especially vulnerable due to health concerns and particular activities that pose heightened levels of risk such as gatherings indoors. Students who are medically vulnerable should continue to follow the guidance on our website, including on how to seek advice on their individual circumstances.

The latest details of all you need to do to be safe to return to campus are regularly updated on our COVID pages for students. Please make sure you have read the current content of these pages.

We are really looking forward to taking this step towards campus life as we used to know it and will be doing all we can to ensure that any steps we take are carefully thought out and are reflective of the national COVID picture, and that the safety of our whole community is prioritised. We will continue to monitor the situation and the level of protection needed carefully.

Thank you for your patience and cooperation as we continue to steer our way, slowly but surely, through this enduring pandemic. Please continue to follow all the guidance and we will continue to keep you updated.

If you have any questions, please contact covid19@essex.ac.uk.