Ontario universities and colleges will return to near-normal this fall thanks to vaccine mandates — with no class capacity limits or physical distancing requirements, says a memo obtained by the Star that went out to post-secondary institutions late Tuesday. The memo from Shelley Tapp, deputy minister of colleges and universities, came as schools were raising alarm bells over reports of the government’s closed-door discussions on requiring two metres of physical distancing, as first reported by the Star’s Martin Regg Cohn. As of Sept. 7, Tapp added, the province will “remove physical distancing and capacity limit requirements for indoor instructional spaces (e.g., classrooms, labs, etc.) No one has any issue with that.”In July, schools were told they could reopen this fall with no capacity limits or physical distancing requirements, but that face masks would be required indoors. Universities and colleges held almost all classes online last year, cancelled frosh week and other campus events and scaled back on the number of students in residence given the ongoing pandemic.

Source: thestar September 01, 2021 02:48 UTC