Morris Brown College in Atlanta has issued a mask mandate for the next two weeks in response to the rise of positive COVID-19 cases at the Atlanta University Center, CBS News Atlanta reports.

The HBCU made the announcement on its Instagram page stating that students and employees must wear masks, practice physical distancing, and contact tracing, to combat the spread of the virus on campus.

According to the Georgia Department of Health, the new Covid variants have dramatically increased across Georgia and hospitalizations have risen 30% throughout the state.

Dr. Jayne Morgan, executive director of Health and Community Education at Piedmont Healthcare said that more travel is one the factors that has caused the virus to spread.

"This is what endemic means -- it doesn't go away," Morgan explained. "We know now, with this heat wave, so many people have been driven indoors, when we're usually outdoors. We're also traveling a lot during the summer, so we're carrying the virus from one group to the next."

Morgan also noted that in addition to mask-wearing, having  current vaccinations, proper hand hygiene and reducing social interactions are critically important to slowing the spread of the virus. Additionally,  she urged anyone with symptoms to visit their doctor immediately due to the shrinking number of at-home testing kits available.

Recently, there’s been an uptick in cases across the country and the World Health Organization has announced that Eg.5 is a variant of interests that has been estimated to have made up 20.6% of new cases. FL.1.5.1 is the next-largest strain at 13.3% of U.S. infections, the CDC reported.

So far, of the institutions that make up AU Center which include Morehouse College, Spelman College, and Clark Atlanta University, Morris Brown is the only school to reinstate a mask mandate.