Stanford to roll back mask requirements, gathering restrictions

June 11, 2021, 9:44 p.m.

Stanford will not require fully vaccinated students to wear masks in indoor or outdoor residential areas after June 26, the University announced today.

Masks will continue to be required indoors in most other buildings, including dining halls and academic, research and administrative buildings. They currently are not — and will continue not to be — required outdoors for fully vaccinated students and employees, except in situations where physical distancing is difficult to maintain.

The news comes just days after Stanford announced that many COVID-19 restrictions on campus would end on June 16, including the elimination of Campus Zones and the Campus Compact. In the broader Bay Area, cases continue to decline as vaccination rates rise. The state will almost fully reopen on June 15.

In other developments, the University also eliminated density requirements for administrative, academic and research facilities.

Additionally, an Environmental Health & Safety review of University-sponsored events with fewer than 500 participants will no longer be required after June 15, though events of any size must comply with public health guidance.

“We are working toward a fall quarter that is as close to normal as possible,” the announcement read.

Other changes include:

  • Stanford will return to weekday enforcement of commuter and visitor parking on the main campus, rather than 24 hours a day and seven days a week. Visitor parking will be available in all parts of the main campus starting June 16.
  • With the end of Campus Zones, visitors entering non-residential campus facilities need to be pre-approved and complete the visitor health attestation form.
  • Students, faculty, staff and postdoctoral scholars planning to come on campus will be required to respond to the vaccination status question on the Health Check as soon as June 17.

Sam Catania ’24 is the Volume 262 Editor in Chief of The Daily. Previously, he was Chief Technology Officer, the producer of the weekly video roundup, a news beat reporter covering COVID-19 on Stanford's campus and the assessment team leader of The Daily's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) team. Sam hails from Philadelphia and is studying Symbolic Systems. You can follow him on Twitter @sbcatania. Contact him at scatania 'at' stanforddaily.com

Login or create an account