Beginning next week, designated indoor eating areas will be expanded for community use and the Cohen Plaza and Lazarus tents will be augmented with side flaps and approved heating units.

For the tents, semi-enclosing flaps have already been installed, and the heating units will be functional by Wednesday, November 17. The heaters will operate between 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., and are currently planned to remain operational through December 17 for Cohen Plaza and December 23 for Lazarus.

For indoor dining, the capacity of the eating area on the lower level of Brown Center has increased to 50 people. Single offices or rooms that have been previously designated as single eating spaces will continue to be used as such. Please refer to MICA’s Operational Mode 4 Eating and Drinking Guidance for on-campus food service (meal plan) locations. MICA/JHU Film Centre will continue established practices in accordance with MICA and JHU guidelines.

Additional indoor dining locations are:

• Bunting 207 and Bunting 360: These rooms have been set up to accommodate six people at a time each. In both rooms, those eating will need to be a minimum of three feet apart, and put their masks back on as soon as they’ve finished. When eating in these rooms, doors should also be left open to promote air flow.
• Lazarus Center + 1801 Falls Road: Graduate Studies students whose program spaces are located in these buildings will be permitted to unmask briefly in their individually-assigned studios or their individually-assigned desk-workspace in order to eat or drink, and then replace their mask immediately after consuming their food and drink. This aligns with the protocol for trains and planes at this time.
  
  Because there are no other indoor spaces available in Lazarus that meet the requirements for safe, accessible, indoor-dining during cold-weather months, unmasking in one’s individually-assigned workspace in order to briefly eat is a pandemic-era exception only, and applies only to Lazarus Center/1801.
  
  The impacted areas include the LL, first, fourth, and fifth floors of Lazarus Center, and the studios and desks/workspaces on the ground, LL, and first floors of 1801 Falls Road.
  
  Typically, per the Academic Workspace Agreement, eating or drinking in individually-assigned workspaces is prohibited in order to minimize pests and to maintain a healthy work environment; the prohibition for eating in individual workspaces will be reinstated when the weather warms and/or pandemic conditions subside.
  • MAT Project Room (L165) has been designated for graduate students in the MAT program, as MAT students have no individually-assigned workspaces. Those eating in the MAT Project Room will need to be a minimum of three feet apart, and put their masks back on as soon as they’ve finished. When eating in this room, the door should be left open to promote air flow. While serving as the Designated Indoor Dining space for MAT students in the coming months, the MAT Project Room will not be available for other activities.
  • There are no indoor spaces available in Lazarus + 1801 to designate for groups to dine in proximity to one another. Groups must either travel to the spaces on the Mount Royal side of the bridge and follow indoor dining protocols noted above, or dine outdoors in the Lazarus tent.
  • Indoor dining options for the Undergraduate Studies areas of Lazarus Center are in the process of being finalized, and will be announced by the undergraduate programs directly to their community members next week.

Finally, MICA’s consulting epidemiologists continue to advise that unmasking indoors persists as a higher-risk activity that must be closely managed. We respectfully ask all community members to continue to do their individual part by unmasking as efficiently and briefly as possible when using designated indoor eating spaces.

As always, your contribution to MICA’s low positivity rates through adhering to public health and safety measures is greatly appreciated.