Due to Lafayette’s success in managing the pandemic, the administration has consulted with members of the CDC and decided to add an additional operational level: Level -1.
Level -1 will be below Level 0, and will only be put into place when the campus has either exactly 0% of students with COVID-19 or 100%. Either way, the risk of transmitting the virus to somebody would be nonexistent.
“We thought this would be a good way to help the campus come together after such a hard year,” President of All Things COVID, Marissa Cohen said. “It will only be implemented in those two extremes, but I’m hopeful we can get there.”
During Level -1, rooms will be capped at 300% of their capacity and students will be told to lick their hands before any physical contact with other students in a campaign known as “Lick-a-Pard.” Dining halls will also be open for sit down meals, but all students must eat from the same utensils. The last prominent change during Level -1 will be the encouragement of students to conglomerate maskless, especially indoors.
“I really like that the college is doing this,” David O’Connor ‘21 said. “It will be a really good encouragement for students because I know we would all love to hit Level -1 and start throwing away our masks.”
In the event that Lafayette students are able to reach Level -1 and it goes well, the college remarked that there would potentially be the opportunity for a Level -2.
Despite not knowing fully what it would entail, Cohen imagines that all students would be prompted to greet each other with a kiss, and the college would sponsor a trip down to Miami for any student that wanted to go.
All in all, these efforts to unify the campus through Operational Levels will be a daunting task, but one that students are confident will be successful.
“Honestly, if a superspreader frat party doesn’t cause us to go up a level at all, I see us reaching Level -1 in no time,” Taylor Smith ’24 said.
Editor’s note: This is a satire article featured as part of our annual Scoffayette issue.
