Fruit Ninja coming to COVID-19 test check-in stations among other policy updates

APRIL FOOL’S: This article was published as part of The News-Letter’s annual April Fool’s edition, an attempt at adding some humor to a newspaper that is normally very serious about its reporting. 

The Hopkins administration has recently issued another set of COVID-19 guidelines for Homewood Campus. The University is hopeful that these guidelines will continue to limit transmission in our community. They are as follows:

• Masks must be worn while going down a set of stairs but are optional if you are going up the stairs.
• If you got three Moderna vaccines, you can legally spit in other people’s faces. If you got two Moderna doses and one  Pfizer-BioNTech dose, you can wear your mask below your nose in class. If you got one Moderna, one Pfizer and one Johnson & Johnson/Janssen dose, you can put the mask over your eyes.
• Masks must be worn during sex (doggy style obviously excluded, as you are not facing each other). You can take it down to kiss twice but must put it back on for the rest of it.
• When doing the Cupid Shuffle, you must have your mask on when you’re moving to the right, to the right, to the right, to the right, but not when you’re moving to the left, to the left, to the left, to the left.
• We have decided to convert the isolation rooms at the Inn at the Colonnade into hotel rooms again. If you do get infected with COVID-19, please ask it nicely to go away. You can also give COVID-19 to someone else by tagging them, and there are no tagsies backsies.
• COVID-19 testing protocol is still in place for all Hopkins affiliates, but if you just pretend to spit in the tube, it can be our little secret. We will also be uploading iPad games like Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride to the self check-in tablets in case you need a nice break in your day.
• Instead of weekly COVID-19 tests for all undergraduates, the blue-vest COVID-19 safety monitors will begin accosting students on campus at random. If you refuse to comply, they now have the legal authority to handcuff you to the nearest lamppost as a harbinger to other students who dare to defy them.
• We tried to think of a way to make the dining policy more confusing, but we couldn’t do it. We’ll keep the “don’t move the chairs” signs up in all the dining halls just because we feel like it.

Students, as per usual, continue to be perplexed by the COVID-19 guidelines. Sophomore Tanner McHarrington told The News-Letter about his frustration with the ever-present gray areas.

“I’m not really good at playing tag, so I’m really worried about getting COVID-19 and not being able to get rid of it,” he said. “However I am stoked about the tablets getting Fruit Ninja. That will be a game changer for me.”

Senior Edith Puthie was similarly dissatisfied with the administration’s vagueness.

“I appreciate them addressing the Cupid Shuffle, but what are we supposed to do during the Cha Cha Slide? This is so typical of our administration — they have absolutely no regard for the students,” she said.

According to the administration, affiliates can expect more guidelines to be released sometime within the next calendar year. The University wishes good luck upon everyone until then.