Today, the state of Connecticut plans on lifting its COVID-19 in accordance with the announcement made by Governor Ned Lamont on February 16.

In this new reopening phase, social and recreation events will look to have their indoor capacity increased by 50%, holding a total of 100 people at a time.

In addition, outdoor venues will also see an increase in capacity, as the total amount of people at one time increases from 25 to 200 people.

With the lift in restrictions, Quinnipiac is also loosening its restrictions, as an email sent by chief experience officer Tom Ellet outlined how the university would gradually ease certain COVID-19 restrictions on campus.

Most notably, some of the biggest changes include allowing students to visit other dorms, in-person attendance at athletic events and bringing back shuttle service to North Haven.

The lift in restrictions has students like first-year Emily Schwartz, who received her vaccine but is worried about her friends who haven’t.

“For my friends who don’t have any choice about keeping themselves safe, they’re pretty upset about opening up the restrictions right now,” Schwartz said.

As both the state of Connecticut and Quinnipiac begin to loosen their restrictions, senior medical advisor, Dr. David Hill, talked about the challenges this brings.

“Opening things up to full capacity is a challenge,” Hill said. “But that comes with a caveat that we still want to have distancing and we still want to have masks and want to do the right thing.”

Despite the uncertainty of opening up the campus, students like first-year Stacey Cadou feel confident in the university’s decision.

“I think that they’re [Quinnipiac] pretty smart,” Cadou said. “We’ve been doing good so far. So I mean reducing the spread…I guess they’re making progress with it, so it’s pretty good.”

Though we are starting to get back to a sense of ‘normalcy’, Dr. Hill reminds us that the battle with the virus is far from over.

“This disease is still with us,” Hill said. “There’s still thousands of cases and ongoing deaths. We can’t let our guards down.”