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Mercer Handing Out COVID-19 Safety Kits To Returning Students
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Mercer University is rolling out a new care package program to provide students, faculty, and staff the resources they need in order to help minimize the risk and spread of COVID-19.
The care package will include a cloth mask, bottle of hand sanitizer, digital thermometer, and a guide featuring tips for preventing the spread of the coronavirus. Students attending summer school in Macon and Atlanta will receive the first kits.
“This is a limited rollout because we have a limited number of in-person classes during the second summer session,” Mercer University Chief of Staff Larry Brumley said. “So, it's an opportunity for us to fine-tune and learn from this smaller group of students and how we onboard them and care for them.”
Summer school students received one of the 600 packages of supplies. However, by the time students return to campus in the fall, Mercer plans to have 12,000 packages ready to distribute.
Kits will be provided for students, faculty and staff in August.
Dr. Jeffrey Stephens with the Mercer School of Medicine said, “Simple masking probably would decrease transmission 40 or 50% in the population. So that's a very easy thing to do.”
Stephens said Mercer is doing what is possible to decrease the transmission rate with the help of students faculty and staff in providing masks that will be required on campus as well as other necessary equipment.
Mercer had volunteers create the kits in an assembly line in Penfield Hall on June 18. The university is also hosting a lab on campus capable of testing 1,000 people a day for COVID-19 and will have infrared cameras on buildings to monitor temperatures.
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