TO:
HSC Faculty, Staff and Students
FROM:
Jessica Maack Rangel, MS, RN, FNAP, Executive Vice President Health Systems
March 16, 2022
March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic. We have surpassed the two-year mark. Each of you contributed to keeping HSC engaged and at the forefront of this pandemic, serving others. Your tenacity and resilience have been evident every step of the way. Thank you for serving our community and each other. As the national and local number of COVID infections continues to decline, I am taking this opportunity to stand down on recommended masking to masking optional effective immediately.
Many of our HSC family have various reasons to remain masked and those guidelines from the CDC are here. The HSC Health clinics will continue to require masks in order to protect our vulnerable patients from various seasonal infectious diseases such as the Flu, which is on the rise in Tarrant County.
Remain vigilant, however. Overseas, parts of Asia and Europe are seeing another rise in COVID infection triggering some lockdowns. It’s been identified as mostly Omicron and now a combination variant called Deltacron. With only a portion of Americans fully vaccinated, that leaves up to 55% vulnerable. We will watch this closely and as we learn more, will share this information.
What you can do now is continue good hand hygiene practices, social distancing as appropriate and stay home if you do not feel well. HSC Health is still providing COVID vaccination as well as Flu vaccine: students call 817-735-5051 and employees call 817-735-2273 for an appointment. Should you test positive for COVID, please notify the confidential email HSCCOVID@unthsc.edu for tracking purposes. Be sure to include #HSCSECURE in the subject line.
Thank you again for your commitment to keeping our community and colleagues safe.