Thank you. It seems to me like they are saying they already paid for permanent access to most 2018 or older articles:

"What is not affected

You can still access the following content in the same way you always have:

Most Elsevier articles published in 2018 or earlier: Because the UC’s prior contracts included permanent access to previously published content, you will still be able to get immediate access to the full text of most articles via ScienceDirect, just as you have in the past."

You are correct. I apologise for the inadvertence. What I meant to say is that access would only be affected for post-2018 publications. The only comment at that time was one suggesting UC staff would be turning to alternative sources for access. Aside from post-2018 publications, generally they will not need to do that.