Link to the April 1 - May 31, 2022 UUAA COVID Precautions Policy & Procedures

Link to the January 1 - March 31, 2022 UUAA COVID Precautions Policy & Procedures

Self-Screening Health Questionnaire

Outdoor Space Reservation Form

Link to Lay Leader Info including how to reserve Zoom rooms

UUAA's Updated Health & Safety Protocols for January-March 2022

From UUAA's COVID-19 Advisory Team

Dear Members & Friends of the UUAA Community,

Happy New Year! As we enter a new calendar year, and month 22 of the pandemic, our team would first like to express profound appreciation for how deeply committed our UUAA family has been to our collective well-being and care for one another. Thanks to our shared efforts, there continue to be zero known or reported instances of an individual contracting COVID-19 due to participation in any UUAA-related activity, Sunday service, or Spiritual Growth and Development (SGD) programming. For this to be true for our UUAA community - this deep into the pandemic - is nothing short of remarkable. Well done, each and every one of us!

Moving more deeply into our second full winter with COVID-19, UUAA will be shifting towards stricter health and safety protocols. The full text of UUAA's revised pandemic-era operational policies can be accessed here. We would like to highlight some of the important changes in this communication:

• While UUAA has consistently "strongly encouraged" all eligible congregants to get vaccinated and boostered against COVID-19, UUAA will now be expecting all eligible congregants to be fully vaccinated (including booster shots) for in-person participation in UUAA activities, Sunday services, and SGD programming. The exact language of UUAA's new policy is this: "In-person building access will be for individuals who are eligible to be and are fully vaccinated and, as eligible, boostered against COVID-19, with exceptions for those who are not eligible to be vaccinated or boostered or cannot be vaccinated or boostered for health reasons."
  
  
• If you are choosing not to be vaccinated or boostered, for any reason, we ask that for the time being you participate in UUAA's community life through our live-streaming and on-demand options. We thank you for your understanding and cooperation with this.
  
  
• This policy does not apply to children under 5, who are currently ineligible to be vaccinated; individuals, such as children and youth aged 5-15, who are not yet eligible for a booster; and, other individuals who may have medical needs that preclude the possibility of vaccination or getting a booster.
  
  
• As a community grounded in covenant - grounded in our promises to one another within the context of community - we will be approaching this new health and safety expectation as a covenantal understanding. Our community's new health and safety expectation will be promulgated widely, including through signage on our entryways, pulpit announcements, and via electronic communications. Individuals discovered to be knowingly violating this new policy will be referred to the Living Our Values (LOV) Team and/or, if necessary, the Healthy Congregation Response Team (HCRT). As a practical matter, it is worth noting that, unlike larger organizations, UUAA does not have the financial or staff resources to check/verify the validity of vaccination cards, create a UUAA vaccination database, or undertake other similar measures. UUAA will be relying on a covenantal approach to vaccination/booster status for practical reasons as well as in fidelity with the spirit of Unitarian Universalism.
  
  
• While UUAA has been operating under the assumption of a 50% maximum in-person capacity in the Sanctuary since September 2021, our team has now officially adopted this number (50% of our pre-pandemic in-person maximum capacity) as the maximum allowed number of persons in the Sanctuary as long as pandemic-era health and safety protocols continue. It is worth noting that during most of our Sunday services this congregational year (2021-2022), actual in-person attendance has been significantly below this maximum, typically less than 25% of our pre-pandemic maximum capacity.
  
  
• All other health and safety protocols that UUAA has previously announced remain in place. This includes the following: universal masking remains in place for all while on-site at UUAA; all chancel and music leaders appearing unmasked or singing on a Sunday morning will have had a negative COVID-19 antigen test less than 24 hours before appearing before the community unmasked or singing; the possibility of physical distancing within the sanctuary remains in place; and, finally, UUAA's upgraded HVAC technology (with bacteria and virus killing filtration) continues to completely turn over the air in the sanctuary, and thereby treating it, every 15 minutes.

Collectively, UUAA's revised health and safety protocols represent a comprehensive, science-based approach - one that focuses on vaccination, important behavioral requirements and expectations for being on-site, and significant technological upgrades. With our community's continued goodwill and cooperation, we will continue to keep each other as safe as we possibly can.

Please remember that right now any in-person activity with others entails risk to one's personal health and well-being. Only you and/or your family can decide for yourselves what level of health-related risk is right for you. Please engage in deliberate reflection and conversation to arrive at the answer that makes the most sense for you and/or your family. Whatever your choice, please know that we, your UUAA family, support you in making the decision that is right for you. UUAA will continue to provide in-person, live-streaming, and on-demand engagement options as a way of maximizing the modes by which our community members and friends can stay engaged.

Finally, as the Omicron variant's impact on our local environment still unfolds, please know that our team is actively following daily developments and assessing whether further adjustments to UUAA's policies and practices may be needed. To that end, if local circumstances warrant it, UUAA may shift to one Sunday service (instead of two services) or return to virtual-only services for some duration of time, as needed. If such unfolds, our community members and friends will be advised accordingly. For the time being, please continue to closely monitor UUAA's weekly email communications for any important adjustments to our scheduling and/or programming.

May we all have a healthy, safe, and meaningful 2022! Thank you for being an important part of our UUAA family.

The members of UUAA's COVID-19 Advisory Team are Jim Lee, Jim Marks, Tom Reischl, Laura Bauman, QuianaDenae Perkins, Cassandra Hartley, and Manish Mishra-Marzetti.