By Carin Holmes
News Editor
As KU begins its Fall 2021 semester, students may notice some changes to COVID-19 mitigation efforts. Zoom is being used far less frequently, and the classrooms are once again filled with non-socially distanced desks. However, common methods used to contain the virus are still in place such as mandatory mask-wearing, testing, and contact tracing.
Photo by Lena Hamm
This semester, there is an additional resource used to fight the pandemic on and around campus; the university “strongly encourages” vaccines.
KU will be hosting COVID-19 vaccination clinics, offering the Moderna vaccine, on campus on Sept. 17 and Oct. 15 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the East Gym of the Student Recreation Center. The university also has a web page here that provides vaccine information for those in the campus community who may be interested in getting their vaccine elsewhere.
According to KU’s guide to the Fall 2021 semester, KU will continue conducting COVID-19 testing on campus. Students who are experiencing symptoms are to make an appointment to be tested with the Health Center by calling 610-683-4082.
Those who are asymptomatic may be tested by the Health Center if they are either a close contact of a positive case or they are a student-athlete or coach. Otherwise, asymptomatic students can find testing at the CVS Pharmacy and Rite Aid in town.
Students seeking more information related to KU’s plans to control the spread of COVID-19 this semester can find the university’s guide to the Fall 2021 semester here.
One reply on “KU begins Fall 2021 semester with plans to contain COVID-19 spread”
Maybe you should make the point that KU is not requiring students, faculty, and staff to be vaccinated. Why is that? It is because the Chancellor of the PA state college system erroneously claims that they do not have the legal right to do so. The real reason is that he is afraid of the Trumpublican state legislators from who he wants $75 million of new funds in order to “save” money by merging some of the 13 state colleges. All he is going to do is add one more layer of administration to the existing colleges that he claims to be merging even though they all will still have separate athletic teams, etc. Local schools like Lehigh and Muhlenberg require vaccinations and students and parents are on board. When you pay $50,000 – 60,000 a year you do not want your investment in your child to go for nought because he dies from Covid. In contrast, at KU life is cheap – at least that what the school’s administrators and the state college system honchos think.