Updated Thursday 24 February 2022

The government has published its "Living with COVID-19" plan, and all COVID legal restrictions have now come to an end in England.

We are adopting a public health approach that we believe will keep our students and staff safe, and ensure that we can continue teaching, undertaking research and running our operations, enabling us to benefit from the return to activity on campus.

The updated guidance below covers measures to the end of the spring term, 25 March 2022. Following this date, we will review our guidance again, with further changes likely coming into effect from the start of April 2022 and again ahead of the start of the summer term on 30 April 2022.

Please bookmark this page and continue to check back for updates. 

Contact tracing and testing

As part of the government's plan, routine contact tracing ends on 24 February 2022. For the remainder of this term, Imperial's COVID-19 Contact Tracing Hub will continue to provide support and advice to staff and students regarding the management of COVID. 

We encourage all staff and students to continue to take regular COVID tests before coming into campus and to report the results. While no longer used for contact tracing purposes, reporting your results will help us continue to manage case levels in our community and ensure that we adopt the appropriate safety measure.

Results should be reported in the same way: the self-declaration form for PCR tests, and via My Imperial for LFD tests.

Our current position is that we will continue to offer on-site asymptomatic PCR testing for all staff and students.

The government’s LFD Collect scheme has now come to an end, and from 17.00 on Friday 25 February we are no longer able to distribute LFD tests on campus. Staff and students can order LFD tests free-of-charge from the Gov.uk website until 1 April 2022.  

Infection control

To help control the spread of respiratory infections within the College and to keep our community safe, anyone showing symptoms should not attend campus.

If you are well enough and able to work or study remotely, then you should do so. Otherwise, for staff, you should report in sick. We are updating our staff sickness absence policy in relation to COVID and will publish more information in the coming days.

Students who test positive should self-isolate in their accommodation. We will continue to provide food support to students self-isolating in halls of residence until the end of the spring term.

Vaccination

We are very strongly encouraging vaccination, including boosters. Vaccination is free for everyone in the UK, including international students.

Find out more about booking vaccinations and boosters on the NHS website.

Face coverings

While infection rates remain high, we encourage all members of our community to continue wearing face coverings in most indoor settings on campus, including teaching spaces. Requirements may differ in some areas of our campuses, in line with local risk assessments, and we encourage staff and students to refer to local guidance where applicable.

Wearing a face covering is particularly important in crowded, enclosed spaces where you may come into contact with people you do not normally meet.

For examinations, we encourage students to wear face coverings when moving around the space but not when seated during the examination.

Teaching spaces

We will continue to move forward safely to remove capacity constraints within our teaching and examination spaces, taking into account the best way to deliver teaching.

Ventilation in rooms should be optimised wherever possible, including the use of natural ventilation where practical.

Office spaces

The safety measures necessary in office spaces will vary between different types of space. 

Local risk assessments for working spaces should be reviewed to determine what changes can be made to capacity. We recommend gradually increasing occupancy and monitoring, rather than making a sudden shift.

The wearing of face coverings when seated in office areas is not recommended.

Events

The resumption of in-person events continues, with the aim of building up to 100% capacities by 1 April 2022. 

Risk assessments

We will continue to assess the risk of transmission in our regular risk assessments so mitigations appropriate to our activities can be implemented.

Clinically vulnerable staff

While Omicron is not dangerous to most people, we know that some people in our community may be more at risk.

If you have underlying health issues which make you clinically vulnerable or extremely vulnerable to COVID-19 infection, you can ask your manager to explain the measures taken to control risk in your area. Individual risk assessments can be carried out where appropriate.

Occupational Health accepts referrals from managers for employees who have concerns about their personal medical vulnerability after reviewing the risk assessment.