Trinity staff will this year have to keep a contact log of all the people they interact with for more than 15 minutes at a distance of 2 metres.
The contact logs will be used to help speed up contact tracing if a staff member contracts the coronavirus.
Staff will have to record the name of the contact, how long they spent with the person at the given time, whether they were two or one metre apart, as well as the phone number and email address of the contact.
If a staff member contracts the virus, their School’s Covid Coordinator will receive a copy of the log. It will also be made available to the College and the HSE.
Staff will be required to keep the contact log even if they also have the coronavirus tracker app on their mobile phone.
Universities and colleges will be permitted to relax the two-metre social distancing rule to one metre when in lectures or classes, the government announced earlier this month.
In new guidelines for higher-education institutions, the government said that while the two-metre rule should be maintained “under all circumstances possible”, there will be instances where “teaching cannot be delivered while maintaining 2m distance between students”.
“Under such circumstances”, the guidelines said, “the distance between student seats or workstations may be reduced to (but not less than) 1m”.
Staff are advised to wear face shields, visors or other protective equipment – provided by the universities – if the social distancing rule is relaxed.
The government also recommends “the use of cloth face coverings in indoor settings where adequate physical distance cannot be maintained”.
