Lehigh’s COVID Response Team extended the school’s vaccination requirement for students, faculty and staff, mandating that those eligible and without an exemption must receive the booster for spring semester.
The announcement came in an email on Dec. 22, which said the deadline to submit the booster documentation will be Jan. 14.
The email said that only people with previously approved exemptions for the initial vaccine requirement, will be granted an exemption for the booster—exemptions can be medical or religious.
The COVID Response Team said that students who fail to comply with the booster requirement will be unenrolled from spring classes.
“Faculty and staff noncompliance will be addressed at the college and stem level as a violation of workplace and university policy,” the email said.
Everyone 18 years or older, who received their initial Pfizer or Moderna vaccine six or more months ago, or those who received their Johnson and Johnson vaccine two or more months ago, is eligible for a COVID-19 booster.
Students who become eligible after Jan. 14 have 14 days to get their booster shot and provide documentation.
Other schools have similarly announced they will be requiring the COVID-19 booster and some have set heightened restrictions for when students come back after winter break. Harvard University announced that they will be remote for the first three weeks of January. Columbia, Stanford and seven schools within the University of California have also announced the move to remote learning to contain the spread of the Omicron variant. Lehigh has not made plans to move the beginning of spring semester to remote learning.
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