Compulsory facemasks in lectures

Dr Lehner, why has the university made it compulsory to wear a facemask in the classroom setting?
The education provided by our university is built around in-person teaching. Our rector Sarah Springman already announced in mid-June that all ETH students should be given the opportunity to physically attend as many events as possible in the Autumn Semester 2020. By making facemasks compulsory, we are able to offer an adequate level of in-person teaching while at the same time managing the pandemic situation in a responsible manner.

Does the new rule mean that students must wear a facemask for the entire day?
Yes, at least for most of the day. Wearing facemasks in ETH buildings has already been mandatory since 24 August, but now this rule is extended to all teaching spaces. But if students sit at student workplaces between two teaching events where the minimum physical distance can be maintained, they may of course take off their facemask. Under current regulations, there is also no need to wear a facemask in the catering areas or outdoor areas of the campus.

You mentioned workstations for students: are enough of them available?
That’s a very important question. On the one hand we are increasing their availability. Working with representatives from the area of Infrastructure and the academic departments, we have identified areas in buildings where additional workstations can be set up. On the other hand, we are calling on all students to only come to campus for in-person teaching events. In other words, the available workstations are reserved for those students on campus between two classroom events and who want to log on to an online event, for example. All other students should avoid working on campus wherever possible. In this way we can generally reduce pressure on the university’s infrastructure, as well as on our catering facilities.

We have been warned that facemasks do not provide total protection. What’s the situation for students who belong to a particularly vulnerable group?
If you belong to a high-risk group, it’s best to stick with online teaching. All lectures are usually recorded, and for other events such as exercise groups there is always an online variant wherever possible. Of course, this offering is also open to students who cannot (or do not want to) come to the campus for any other reason. Our online offering is extremely well designed so as to guarantee a high quality of teaching on this learning platform as well. 

The planning arrangements for room occupancy certainly make everything more complicated …
That’s very true. Our planning is based on the principle of only 50% maximum occupancy. Planning is made a little more secure by the fact that all teaching events may only be attended by students who are registered for them. This is due to contact tracing requirements. When allocating room space, we also looked at actual attendance numbers from the past. Obviously we cannot entirely rule out certain scenarios where there is no more space for students because the maximum occupancy has already been reached. Here we can only hope that everyone understands the extraordinary situation, and appeal to students’ flexibility. Once again, the excellent quality of our online offering means an excellent alternative is available.

You mentioned that 50% occupancy is the norm. Are there any exceptions?
We have special rules for first-year students starting their bachelor’s course in the autumn, as these students must pass their first-year exams before they are allowed to continue their studies. Experience shows that networking with fellow students is particularly important in the first year for successful outcomes. We therefore want to give first-year students as much opportunity as possible to interact with each other and exchange ideas and share knowledge. Given the lack of space, we have made organisational arrangements that allow us to increase occupancy over 50% in some rooms.

What sort of arrangements?
All first-year students will be organised into bubbles, or set groups, in which they attend all exercises and practicals. There will be no mixing between bubbles: in other words, students will not be allowed to choose events as they wish, or to change groups. These bubbles are an important additional instrument for preventing large clusters of infection at the university. But there is obviously also an online offering for first-year students, which is designed mainly for those in high-risk groups, but is basically open to everyone, as I already mentioned.

Finally, let’s look at things from a different angle: Do lecturers have to wear masks as well?
Yes, generally speaking. In lecture halls and specially designated large seminar rooms, however, teaching staff are also allowed to wear other types of protection, such as face shields. In large teaching events especially, where lecturers use a microphone, it’s easier to hear what they say without a mask. A prerequisite for omitting the mask is that the lecturers can keep sufficient distance from the students.

Wearing a facemask is not very comfortable. Do you think the safety protocol will attract much criticism?
The obligation to wear a mask is certainly triggering some discussion, but the health of ETH members has top priority. Our goal is to do everything we can to avoid a major infection cluster, or ‘super spreader’ event.There is broad support generally for the measures introduced in the Autumn Semester. They were drawn up by the Rector’s Office and the Safety, Security, Health and Environment administrative department in consultation with representatives from the academic departments who are responsible for teaching, together with input from members of the student association VSETH and the scientific staff association AVETH. The priority for everyone involved has been to create regulations that were both reasonable and practical so as to allow our university to provide in-person teaching for the entire semester. Now our only hope is that our plans will not be wrecked by a fresh spike in the coronavirus pandemic.