Day 780: MIT's Mask Anti-Mandate

Steve Kirsch blogs about MIT's new mask policy, which appears to prevent mini mask mandates from campus groups after the campus mandate and all relevant city mandates have been revoked. NBC has a bit more on the story. However, here at PlagueBlog Headquarters we heard about the policy changes from a campus group that is still trying to guilt attendees into wearing masks despite the anti-mandate.

One thing the news has missed is that, while the vaccination requirements remain draconian and myocarditis-inducing for MIT faculty, staff, and students, they have also been relaxed (to completely optional) for most visitors. This is easy to miss because different policy pages say different and opaque things about it, but the events policy page is clear that the TIM ticketing system is now optional and that vaccination is only recommended to attend events, while the general vaccination policy page restricts vaccine requirements to TIM ticket holders; vaccination of any sort is merely recommended for other visitors.

That you need prior experience with the Gemara to parse MIT's COVID policies is not particularly surprising, but it is surprising that a campus that was locked down for two years is now so open that visitors can not only breathe the air but walk about unvaccinated. None of the reports have really explained this change of heart, though if we were going to get a random outbreak of numeracy, MIT is certainly be the appropriate place for it.