Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer Jane Schlegel announced that the University will be offering COVID-19 vaccine clinics on campus in an email to the Hopkins community on May 18. Registration is open for the first clinic, which will be held in the Glass Pavillion on Thursday, May 20.
Additionally, administrators updated the health guidelines for students and faculty staying in Baltimore over the summer in an email on May 14. Like in the spring semester, those on campus will need to complete a COVID-19 Health Check on Prodensity in order to access campus; however, students no longer need to register travel on Prodensity. Masks are only required indoors and outside when social distancing is not possible.
According to the administrators, existing quarantine and isolation guidelines will remain in effect regardless of vaccination status. Those who continue to test negative on the ninth day of a two-week quarantine will only have a 10-day isolation period.
On May 17, the three-times-per-week testing requirement was lowered to twice a week, and it now only applies to students living on campus. Once Baltimore enters Phase 3A, vaccinated residential undergraduates will only need to get tested once a week. Off-campus vaccinated undergraduates won’t need to be tested, though testing will be available to those who want it.
Assistant Vice President of External Relations Karen Lancaster explained this decision in an email to The News-Letter.
“Lowering the asymptomatic test requirement from 3x to 2x/week is based on our overall positive case numbers going down both at JHU and in Baltimore, and the fact that more people are getting vaccinated,” she wrote.
Sophomore Casey Levitt expressed appreciation for the University providing testing in an email to The News-Letter.
“I appreciate that they’re making testing available for the summer; getting tested regularly gives me peace of mind,” she wrote. “It will also help keep the Baltimore community safe, which is super important especially considering the racial disparities in vaccination.”
In an email to The News-Letter, Junior Barrett Crawford noted his support for these changes.
“Reducing the number of weekly tests to two makes a lot of sense, especially since a bunch of people I know would get back-to-back tests done in such a short time span that seeing any difference in the two test results was pretty unlikely,” he wrote.
Administrators also announced that they will be creating a documentation system by July 1 where students and faculty can upload proof of vaccination, which will be required to return to campus in the fall.
International students can upload documentation for any vaccine approved by the World Health Organization (WHO) even if that vaccine is not approved for use in the United States. If they are not vaccinated or have received a vaccine that is not approved by WHO, the University will vaccinate them once they arrive on campus.
Molly Gahagen and Leela Gebo contributed reporting to this article.
Correction: The previous version of this article included quotes from a student which were not on the record.
The News-Letter regrets this error.
