Reporting/Tracking COVID-19 Vaccinations

August 5, 2021

Good morning,

As we are nearing the start of this new school year, with most staff and many faculty back on campus to prepare for this new beginning, I wanted to encourage those of you who have received partial, or full, COVID-19 vaccinations to take a moment to upload your information here if you haven’t done so yet. My thanks to those who have already taken the time to record your partial or full vaccinations at that link—nearly 400 of you have taken the time to do that already!

Additionally, if you have had a previous COVID-19 infection and completed isolation, you can report that detail here. Current research shows that a previous COVID-19 infection will provide a level of acquired immunity against the strain of the virus that caused your infection. Since that acquired immunity may not protect you against new and different variants of COVID-19 (such as Delta), some of our employees who had previous COVID-19 infections are also making the choice to receive a COVID-19 vaccination.

Finally, if you are uncertain about, or are planning not to receive, a COVID-19 vaccination, you can share those details here.

The University does, and will continue to, strongly encourage receiving a COVID-19 vaccination. However, the choice to get vaccinated remains with the individual. It is inappropriate for any individual to challenge or harass another student or employee about her or his vaccination status.

Please note that there are now different guidelines in place for those who are vaccinated, have acquired immunity, or have not been vaccinated. You can review those new guidelines for fall semester at this link. Thanks for your support of those guidelines based on your vaccination or acquired immunity status.

As we have shared in earlier letters, Andrews University’s current COVID-19 guidelines and restrictions for those vaccinated or with acquired immunity and unvaccinated will remain in place until at least 70 percent of all employees and students are fully vaccinated or have acquired immunity.

Once again, the need to have up-to-date and accurate information on the numbers of employees and students who are vaccinated, have acquired immunity, or are unvaccinated, is crucially important as our University works to improve our decision-making about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and to better calibrate our COVID-19 safety guidelines. As President Luxton has shared with our campus earlier this year, our plans are to ultimately lift COVID-19 restrictions once we surpass at least 70 percent fully vaccinated/acquired immunity levels for our entire community—employees and students. 

As employees, we will all also need to be flexible as we seek to understand and respond to the changing dynamics of our county, state and country in regard to the COVID-19 pandemic, the risks of new variants, and the demands those changing dynamics will put on the University to effectively respond to this pandemic.

Those factors, including potential increases in COVID-19 transmission levels in Berrien County to substantial or high levels of community transmission (the county is currently at a moderate level of community transmission), may mean that we will need to further strengthen COVID-19 mitigation efforts on our campus accordingly. You can find the Centers for Disease Control county-level COVID-19 community transmission tracking website here.

To review the University’s latest COVID-19 policies and information, please see our revised COVID-19 website here. If you have additional questions or concerns, please email covid19@andrews.edu.

Thanks for your understanding and support as we prepare for this new school year.

Regards,

Darcy de Leon
Director for Human Resources