After weeks of low caseloads and peeling back public health guidelines, rising coronavirus cases among students are pushing at least two campuses in the D.C. region to temporarily reinstate old mask-wearing and testing rules.

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       Georgetown University is bringing back an indoor mask mandate on the main and medical center campuses, roughly two weeks after making face coverings optional. Johns Hopkins University will again require masking in dining facilities and residence hall common areas, and undergraduates will need to undergo twice-weekly testing until at least April 22. It already requires masks in classrooms.

       Johns Hopkins officials pointed to an influx of cases that followed March’s spring break, with reports of positive cases “among undergraduates who have recently traveled or who were exposed to someone who has recently traveled.” The private campus in Baltimore has recorded 175 positive cases among students in the past seven days, according to the school’s testing dashboard.

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       Many students who have contracted the virus are asymptomatic, and the rest are experiencing mild symptoms, Kevin Shollenberger, vice provost for student health and well-being, said in a message to the campus. The university reports 99 percent of students are fully vaccinated against the virus.

       The twice-weekly testing protocol is a temporary measure, Shollenberger said, but officials may decide to extend the policy if increased testing remains necessary.

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       Coronavirus cases have started to tick up across the region, but officials say they are not seeing the levels of severe sickness that occurred in past surges of the virus.

       At Georgetown, officials say the BA.2 omicron subvariant, now the dominant strain of the virus in the United States, is partly driving an increase on the D.C. campus. Recent studies show the newer strain does not cause more serious illness than its earlier counterpart, but it is more transmissible, Ranit Mishori, the school’s vice president and chief public health officer, said in a message to the campus.

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       The university’s positivity rate last month jumped from 1.5 to 3.22 percent after 96 people tested positive between March 20 and 26, according to Georgetown’s testing dashboard. The most recent testing data shows that 117 people were sick between March 27 and April 2, bumping the university’s positivity rate to 3.82 percent.

       On Thursday, Georgetown President John J. DeGioia announced that he had tested positive for the virus after experiencing mild symptoms and was in isolation.

       Ninety-eight percent of Georgetown students have reported being vaccinated, according to university data.

       “These circumstances present a challenge, but we have learned to adjust our mitigation measures to respond to changing conditions throughout the pandemic,” Mishori said. “Another adjustment is needed now to curb transmission on campus.”

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       In addition to the mask requirement, all Georgetown undergraduates will need to take a PCR test after a five-day Easter break that starts April 14. There will be an exception made for students who have tested positive for the virus within the previous 90 days, Mishori said.

       Elsewhere, officials on other D.C.-area campuses continue to monitor caseloads throughout the region. Like Johns Hopkins, American University experienced a post-spring break jump in cases, reporting at least 192 instances of the virus since students returned March 14, the most recent data shows.

       But this increase has been smaller than one the campus saw in early February, when it logged 118 cases in a single week.

       For now, the current coronavirus policies will stay in place, AU spokeswoman Sandra Rodriguez. The school instituted a mask-optional policy for most spaces on campus — including classrooms, dining facilities and dorms — on March 21.

       “We are assessing our data and campus conditions and will provide updates to our community about any changes to our health and safety protocols,” Rodriguez said in a statement.

       George Washington University has also not made changes to its public safety guidelines. The campus stopped requiring mask usage in most public spaces Monday, but officials continue to encourage it.