MDC Moves Forward With Spring Semester Amidst COVID-19 Surge
Miami Dade College will move forward with the spring semester on Wednesday, amidst a surging COVID-19 positivity rate that has more than doubled since the end of the fall term.
On Dec. 17, the Miami Dade-County’s Daily Dashboard Report recorded a seven-day positivity rate of 13.9. Two weeks later, it’s at a jarring 28 percent.
“The decisions and processes remain the same and are consistent throughout the Florida College System,” said Juan Mendieta, the College’s director of communications.
The College said it will continue offering courses in four modalities this semester: MDC-Live, MDC Online, Blended and in-person modalities.
“I feel kind of hesitant to go back to campus,” said Jazmin Laughlin, the Homestead Campus student government association president. “I think we should stay online until the cases go down.”
Last Wednesday, the University of Miami announced it would start the spring semester remotely for the first two weeks.
Barry University, St. Thomas University, Florida Memorial University and Florida International University will start in-person classes on Jan. 10 as previously scheduled.
At MDC, several staff meetings and welcome back convocations have been moved to a virtual format.
On campus, masks and vaccines are not mandatory but highly encouraged. MDC continues to enforce enhanced cleaning protocols in classrooms, libraries and high-touch areas daily, physical barriers (sneeze guards and plexiglass) are in place and stands with hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes are available.
“I feel that it is safe to go to college as long as you maintain precautions and continue to maintain social distancing in classes and use masks and all of those safety measures that we’ve been using for the past few years,” said Luis Lopez, the Eduardo J. Padrón Campus student government association president.
In partnership with Curative—an organization that provides accessible COVID-19 testing— the College placed kiosks at the campuses to offer testing from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Appointments are necessary and can be booked at https://book.curative.com/search#9/37.751/-97.822.
MDC also announced the new vaccination pop-up sites for this semester. Here are the new sites:
- Jan. 10 – 11: Homestead (west parking lot) and Wolfson (plaza in the building 2 breezeway) campuses.
- Jan. 12 – 13: Hialeah (parking lot 5) Campus.
The venues will operate from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and be available to students, faculty and the general public.
In the meantime, the vaccination site next to North Campus has remained open seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. It offers COVID testing and administers Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, as well as booster shots.
For at least the past week, the site has been extremely busy. In the morning hours, lines have been rerouted, leading to congestion that has caused the North Campus’ 32nd avenue entrance to be temporarily closed. Some have reported having to wait two to three hours to get tested.
“We are all concerned. Not only my colleagues but everyone that I speak to in our community,” said Elizabeth Ramsay, the president of the United Faculty of MDC. “With such a high community spread, we have to make sure that we’re doing all that we can to protect ourselves from contracting the disease and especially from spreading it to other people.”
