BREAKING: UD announces that it will not require COVID-19 vaccinations

The announcement was made after careful consideration from the UD Path Forward Team, the university said. Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com.

Kaitlin Lewis | Online Editor-in-Chief

The University of Dayton took a stance Friday morning announcing that it will not be requiring COVID-19 vaccinations for staff, faculty and students at this time. 

The announcement, sent via email to the campus community, was released three days after the Ohio State University said Tuesday that all its staff, faculty and students are now required to be vaccinated against the coronavirus. 

OSU’s announcement came a day after the Food and Drug Administration gave full approval to the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for all people 16 years and older.

In its statement, UD said that the decision was made after careful consideration from the Path Forward Team. 

“With the current high level of vaccinations on campus, our safety protocols and the exemptions that would need to be granted, campus safety would not measurably improve as the result of a mandate,” the statement read.

According to the UD COVID-19 Dashboard, 71% of the campus community is fully vaccinated against the coronavirus. 81% of all UD employees have received the vaccine, compared to 69% of the total student population.

Several other Ohio colleges have already implemented a vaccine mandate for its students, faculty and staff this fall. Some of the colleges include Cleveland State University, Xavier University, Ohio Wesleyan University and Case Western Reserve University. 

Mount Saint Joseph University, located in Cincinnati, is only requiring students who live on campus to be vaccinated.

“On a practical basis, it is not clear that a vaccine mandate would increase the overall campus vaccination rate,” read UD’s email. “Based on our experience last year in implementing a flu vaccine requirement with medical and other exemptions, the number of people vaccinated against the flu did not increase significantly.”

UD had required students living on campus this past spring semester to be vaccinated against the flu. However, it’s unclear how many students decided to receive the vaccine. 

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