Face masks can be taken off, and work on campus may resume

Society will largely open up again on 26 June. The Cabinet recently announced new easing of restrictions that will take effect on Saturday 26 June. The requirement to wear face masks will largely be lifted as will the recommendation to work at home, and there will be no group size restriction on the street anymore. What does the easing of restrictions mean for TU Delft students and staff?

To the office
The requirement to wear face masks inside buildings will be lifted on 26 June, writes TU Delft in an update on its website. Staff will also be welcome to offices again for up to 50% of their work times. For both these measures, the condition is that the one-and-a-half metre social distancing rule can be maintained. The number of people that can be present at the same time thus differs according to the size of the space.

Reopening
For students, not that much will change for the time being. The academic year is drawing to a close and TU Delft is concentrating on the gradual opening after the summer. For the coming academic year, TU Delft is, at the moment, holding on to a ‘basic scenario’, explained Rector Magnificus Tim van der Hagen on Thursday during a talk show about post-covid TU Delft. “What this means is that each student is on campus three days in the week.”

How this will be rolled out in practice in everyday education will depend on each faculty. The Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, for example, has already announced how it will arrange teaching after summer. This will be ‘hybrid’ in the first quarter with both physical and online lectures.

On 13 August, the Dutch Government will take the decision as to whether the one-and-a-half metre rule in higher education can be dropped. The decision is unlikely to bring many changes to TU Delft’s policy. “The situation around corona could even worsen. Just look at the Delta variant. So everyone needs to stay flexible,” said Rob Mudde at the talk show. “That said, we want to create stability for students and staff so we do not want to introduce a different scenario every week.”