This page covers the following topics:


Masking on campus


Indoors

It is strongly recommended but not required that students, faculty, staff, visitors and others wear well-fitting face masks in indoor spaces on campus and at UCLA facilities.

Masking, however, remains mandatory in the following facilities and situations:


UCLA health care settings

This applies to patient care and waiting areas at the Arthur Ashe Health & Wellness Center, the David Geffen School of Medicine and the School of Dentistry, as well as clinical and patient care settings in the following facilities:

  • Community Health Sciences building
  • Factor Health Sciences building
  • Gonda (Goldschmied) Neuroscience and Genetics Research Center
  • MacDonald Medical Research Laboratories building


Masks are not required in the main building lobbies or in offices and conference rooms outside of patient care units.


Isolation and quarantine exemptions

Per UCLA’s isolation and quarantine protocol and LACDPH guidelines, if you are isolating, you must wear a highly protective mask during your isolation period if you will be around others, including those you live with. If you are able to end your isolation period early:

  • Students: Students released from isolation on or after Day 5 must wear a mask around others through Day 10, but they may discontinue masking sooner if they have two negative COVID-19 tests in a row taken at least one day apart before Day 10.
  • Faculty and staff: It is required by Cal/OSHA that employees who return to work following early release from isolation wear a highly protective mask in the workplace through Day 10.

If you have been in close contact with an infected person but are asymptomatic, you do not need to quarantine. However, it is strongly recommended that you wear a highly protective mask around other people — especially those who are at high risk of severe illness — until 10 days have passed since your initial exposure.


Travel and public transit

Masks are strongly recommended by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health on public transportation and at transportation hubs.


Outdoors

Masks are optional outdoors.

Well-fitting masks recommended for use by students and employees:

  • Medical-grade surgical masks
  • KN95s
  • KF94s
  • N95s or other respirators approved by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health

For more on masks and respirators, including how to properly wear them, visit the CDC’s mask page and the LACDPH’s mask page.

Where to get masks on campus

The following locations currently provide free masks to students and employees:

Can I change requirements in my classroom or department?

Faculty, staff and students are are not permitted to create masking requirements for offices, classrooms or other campus spaces that deviate from current UCLA protocols. These protocols need to be applied consistently and equitably across all campus entities.

Those seeking mask accommodations

Students, faculty or staff who are seeking a COVID-19–related accommodation due to a medical condition that either requires them to wear a mask or precludes them from wearing one should consult with the following:

Recommended COVID-19 resources

For journalists

UCLA faculty members are available for interviews with news media on a wide range of topics related to COVID-19, including public health and epidemiology, virology and vaccines, mental health, education, law, politics and the economy.

UCLA COVID-19 experts UCLA COVID-19 news stories

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