It’s just another winter day at UC Davis, with masks required indoors even as the state lifts its mandate today (Feb. 15), with exceptions. Yolo and Sacramento counties are following suit.

Not so fast, though, at all UC Davis locations. Chancellor Gary S. May announced Friday (Feb. 11) that the university’s mask mandate would remain in place at least through winter quarter.

“Given that we are mid-quarter, still transitioning back to in-person instruction and still receding from the omicron peak, we have decided to maintain the status quo,” he said in his monthly letter, “Checking In With Chancellor May.”

Yolo County’s public health officer still recommends masks indoors, May noted, and UC Davis is following that recommendation as the university has done with all of the county’s recommendations since the pandemic began.

Town hall Feb. 28

Questions, questions — people have questions — and UC Davis is putting together a town hall to address them. It’s scheduled from 5 to 6:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 28, as a remote program.

The panel will include three physicians: Aimee Sisson, Yolo County public health officer; Cindy Schorzman, medical director, Student Health and Counseling Services; and Sheri Belafsky, medical director, Healthy Davis Together. Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Mary Croughan, an epidemiologist, will moderate.

Register here for the Zoom link; the town hall also will be livestreamed on the UC Davis YouTube and Facebook channels.

Questions may be submitted in advance via this form.

Daily Symptom Survey

Are you seeing a new pink-approval status on your Daily Symptom Survey? Pink equals “Approved and Action Required,” that is, approved to access most facilities and events but you need to take action to comply with the UC Vaccine Policy. Compliance means having received your initial dose or doses of COVID-19 vaccine and your booster shot (unless you have approved exceptions).

If you are seeing pink, and you believe you are compliant, the problem could be your booster information from the state database is not registering in the Health-e-Messaging portal. You can fix this yourself and should do so as soon as possible.

Here are the step-by-step instructions; you must complete all three steps. Besides taking a photo of your vaccine card and uploading it, you must also manually enter your vaccine information from the card (the system will not read your card). When adding your immunization, be sure you input the correct year.

Otherwise, your pink status serves as an alert: You need to get your booster shot. You may face additional public health requirements that are more restrictive than those for people who are up to date on vaccine compliance.