Dillard University ordered students and employees to resume wearing masks on Friday as COVID-19 infections rise across Louisiana.
The administration mandated indoor masking while it “assesses the trends,” according to a university-wide email that went out Thursday. All students, faculty and staff must wear masks at all times indoors, the message said.
Loyola University on Friday issued a letter from Alicia Bourque, vice president of student affairs, noting an increase in COVID cases but making no mention of masks. Instead it urged students and staff to "continue basic hygiene practices, such as covering your coughs and sneezes and handwashing." Persons with positive test results must isolate and report it to the university, the letters said.
It was not immediately apparent how other New Orleans colleges and universities were managing the latest eruption of COVID-19.
Dillard University in New Orleans is shown Aug. 19, 2020.
Adherence to Dillard's new mandate, coming at the end of the second week of 2023-24 classes, was spotty Friday afternoon at the heat-baked campus in Gentilly. In the library, signs to mask up were few and some students didn't abide. April Vaughn, a second-year nursing student from Olive Branch, Mississippi, was mask-free as she sat alone at a table with a computer, although she said she wore one to class.
"I just don't have it. I left it in the room. I have to get back to practicing," she said.
Music major Martique Redditt, a 20-year-old vocalist and third-year student from St. Gabriel, wore a gray mask and wondered whether she'll have to sing in it, as she did during earlier mandates.
"Now we're back to square one," said Redditt, who said she supports the mandate after contracting the coronavirus last year.
Statewide rise
Dillard’s mandate comes as COVID cases have steadily risen across the state. More than 8,000 new cases were reported last week, according to figures from the Louisiana Department of Health. Reported case numbers appear to have hit recent lows in June, but then rose by six times in a few months, to 732 new cases on Aug. 13.
Average daily hospitalizations eclipsed 200 last week, tripling since June. Hospitalizations in Jefferson, Orleans, Plaquemines and St. Bernard parishes rose from single digits in late June to a recent peak of 61.
Hardly any COVID-19 patients go on ventilators anymore, the state data show.
In its email, Dillard acknowledged it was seeing “elevated numbers of reported infections,” but the administration did not share specifics and a spokesperson did not immediately return a reporter’s call.
'Responsible' decision
New Orleans Health Director Jennifer Avegno called the university's decision "responsible."
“Dillard has been really responsive to the needs of their community and students, closely following surveillance,” Avegno said. “We don't have the same data we used to. It is difficult to know the burden of cases in New Orleans or anywhere in the country because that data doesn't exist. Most people test at home, and cases are never getting reported.
But Avegno said the sense among experts is that infections are rising, in New Orleans and around the United States.
“If two weeks of masking during a surge so you can have robust classes later is the best thing for Dillard, I fully support that,” she said. “Other universities may not feel that way.”
When the Delta variant surged in 2021, most colleges and universities in the New Orleans area brought back mask mandates, with the exception of Tulane University.
Louisiana lifted its last statewide mask mandate, not including some schools, in October 2021.
Missy Wilkinson and John Simerman contributed to this article.