COVID-19 Information Session #1

Dear Colleagues,

At the beginning of this week we updated our guidance and outlined the new steps OIST is taking in response to the global spread of COVID-19. These measures can help ensure that our OIST community – and our neighbors in Okinawa – continue to face a low level of risk. This guidance also prompted helpful questions and queries. We recognize that many of you are also asking about what future steps might have to be taken to keep everyone safe.

To address questions, I invite you to join a thirty minute online OIST COVID-19 Information Session. Two of these meetings will be held tomorrow – Thursday 19 March 2020 – at 2 pm and 4 pm, giving colleagues a choice of times. I will be joined by the Provost, Professor Mary Collins, who chairs the OIST Health and Safety Committee, and our Emergency Response Coordinator Mr Koji Fukuoka, and you will be able to submit questions in real-time. We will describe the measures in place, happily respond to queries and concerns, and take note of comments.

Online OIST COVID-19 Information Session Invitation Link:
https://groups.oist.jp/cpr/covid-19

To ask questions during these sessions, please email them to:
corona@oist.jp

You will also be seeing posters and flyers around OIST summarizing our latest guidance. We have updated the external OIST website as well as TIDA. Our social media channels, which usually promote OIST research and institutional news, will also post updates on COVID-19 prevention measures. We will use the television screens around our buildings to post infection prevention messages and reinforce the latest advice.

There is no COVID-19 infection at OIST, and we want to keep it that way. Universities and institutions elsewhere in the world have suffered extensive disruption or a complete halt to their operations. We have been able to avoid escalation to the highest level of response by taking early action on workshops and conferences, large events, visitor and infection control. Thank you for playing your part in maintaining this situation through your cooperation and vigilance.

Jonathan Ray
Vice-President
Communication and Public Relations Division