Dear KAUST Community,
I wish to inform you that we are taking a number of steps in response to the recent increase in the rate of COVID-19 cases at KAUST and a number of incidents over recent days whereby our Keeping KAUST Safe guidelines and quarantine procedures have been breached and therefore the whole community’s safety has been compromised. Examples include multiple COVID-19 positive people breaking quarantine and causing many others to be contact traced, a number of breaches of protocols, non-compliance with the weekly testing requirements, and multiple community groups holding large events that were not approved and did not follow the Keeping KAUST Safe guidelines. The purpose of these steps is to act preemptively and limit this spike in cases over the coming weeks. Leadership is resolved that we will enforce personal consequences for those who violate quarantine rules and non-compliance with the Keeping KAUST Safe guidelines. Our intention is that if we all act now reinforcing the controls that have protected us for over a year, we will reverse this negative trend before it becomes an even more serious concern.
The following steps are being taken:
- All individuals who violate guidelines will be held accountable
- All of TKS will move to full remote learning from tomorrow, Wednesday, June 2 until the end of the school year on June 17
- No events greater than 20 people are to take place in KAUST with immediate effect until June 17, unless there is exceptional justification approved by HSE
All University staff and students will remain back in the workplace but are urged to fully comply with the clearly stated safety procedures and in particular, adherence to face covering and physical distancing requirements at all times when in the workplace. Our aim is to reverse this recent increase through a collective effort by everyone at KAUST. If we all work to apply the safety procedures in full and without exceptions, I am hopeful that we will regain our very successful mitigation of COVID-19 in the coming weeks. Achieving these controls could also affect our capacity to travel over the holiday period. I fully appreciate that many of the community are planning to travel over the coming months but this may be impacted if someone becomes positive for COVID-19, requiring quarantine so let us all work to ensure that this risk to travelling is brought under control now. KAUST will also host the Ministry of Health (MoH) testing program next week and so I particularly urge you all to register for the MoH testing program as this will allow us to better assess the prevalence of COVID-19 at KAUST and determine if restrictions need to be further adjusted following this two-week period. These are preemptive steps. Our case numbers have increased but, thankfully, are not yet at a severe level. Therefore, I am calling on the whole community to make a concerted effort from today to strictly adhere to the Keeping KAUST Safe procedures so that we do not have to take further actions and that the summer period can be the enjoyable time that we are looking forward to.
Thank you,
Tony Chan
KAUST President
KC3 Chairman
