Provo MTC implementing additional COVID-19 protocols
Dec 30, 2021, 11:46 AM
(Intellectual Reserve. Inc.)
PROVO, Utah — The Provo Missionary Training Center will implement additional COVID-19 protocols, including face covering requirements and additional testing after 91 of the center’s 588 missionaries tested positive for the virus.
Sam Penrod, spokesperson for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said all missionaries at the Provo MTC were tested after several tested positive for COVID-19 earlier this week.
“Since the Provo Missionary Training Center resumed in-person training in June, precautions and COVID protocols have helped to keep any COVID cases to a minimum,” Penrod said in a statement. “These precautions include requiring all missionaries to be fully vaccinated before arrival and available testing of those training in the MTC.”
A total of 91 missionaries, just over 15% of the MTC’s reduced capacity, have tested positive for COVID-19, and few have reported being symptomatic or feeling ill.
Penrod said there are ample facilities in the MTC to isolate those who test negative for COVID-19 and quarantine those who test positive for the virus.
Face coverings will now be required in all indoor classes, meetings and devotionals, and missionaries will not travel to their assigned missions unless they test negative for COVID-19 or have completed all necessary quarantine periods.
Additional procedural protocols have been implemented in the MTC’s cafeteria and gymnasium, and Penrod said all “arriving missionaries will be required to have a negative COVID test when they report on Wednesdays.”
The Provo MTC resumed in-person training on June 23. Only missionaries who are fully vaccinated are eligible for the in-person training.