The university is preparing to move fully in person for the first time since 2020 starting with the fall semester of 2021.
The Mayo Clinic suggests herd immunity will be reached if 70% of the population has either been infected with COVID-19 or received the vaccine. Once this has been reached, the spread of COVID will be virtually impossible.
Wyoming will not reach 70% vaccinated until December of 2021. Wyoming is on the slowest pace to reaching herd immunity of all 50 states according to the Mayo Clinic.
With low cases these past few months, university administration has decided to move to in person instruction in the fall.
“Unless there’s a dramatic, unexpected development, such as an outbreak of some new dangerous COVID variant that is resistant to the new vaccines, we’ll be back fully in person this fall,” President Seidel said.
“What we’re seeing with infection numbers and vaccine availability and acceptance has given us a high degree of confidence that we’ll have a pre-pandemic campus environment for the fall semester,” Seidel said.
It is unclear what precautions, including mask wearing and distancing, will be needed in the fall especially if enough people are vaccinated.
According to the CDC, fully vaccinated people can visit other fully vaccinated people without masks, visited unvaccinated people who are not high risk, travel domestically without testing or quarantine, and travel internationally without testing or quarantining. They still advised vaccinated people to avoid medium or large gatherings, or visiting people with increased risk of COVID-19 indoors.
It is unlikely all of UW students will be vaccinated by the fall. Mary Beth Bender, Director of Student Health, said a recent study found Wyoming is one of the most COVID vaccine-hesitant states in the country.
“Student may similarly be vaccine hesitant,” Bender said.
Despite vaccine hesitancy, Bender said “it probably won’t push back many of the in person plans in the fall unfortunately.”
Student health does not offer the COVID vaccine yet because there is enough vaccine availability through the state vaccination sites. By the fall, Bender says they will likely be doing vaccinations through student health.
Student Health still asks students to enter into the HCM portal if they have received a vaccine, however the number of vaccinated students reported in HCM seems significantly lower than the real number of vaccinated students.
As of now, Wyoming is unable to require students to get a COVID vaccine, as long as it’s under the Emergency Use Authorization. If COVID vaccines end up receiving full FDA approval, Wyoming may require it of students in the future.
“We just want everyone to know that having the vaccine is one of our biggest tickets to having more and more of a normal semester in the fall,” Bender said.
