COVID-19 Update: Events Guidance & Booster Vaccinations
September 2, 2021
To the Saint Louis University community,
I write with a few more updates for the fall semester, including:
- SLU’s events guidance
- Vaccine updates
Events guidance for fall 2021
SLU community members are once again on campus and eager to gather in community with one another. We want that, too, but we also want to do so safely. So, we have developed guidelines for hosting fun, successful and safe events on campus. The new fall events planning guidance for our St. Louis campuses is now live.
This guidance covers events hosted by student organizations, employees/units, and external groups. It also covers specifics on tabling, informal activities and more.
We had intended to publish our guidance prior to the start of fall semester but revised public health measures due to the Delta variant required updates to our initial direction. We appreciate your patience. I particularly want to thank the committee of students, staff and faculty who brought this guidance to life.
Fall meetings, activities and events will be divided by those that are internal to the SLU community vs external. See the guidance for definitions. But both types of events are allowed as long as our public health safeguards are followed.
Some public health requirements may vary, especially for external events, as they bring people with unknown vaccination statuses to our campus. We are not currently requiring external event sponsors to obtain vaccination proof from attendees.
We are again using the Designated Event Review Committee (DER), but in a modified fashion. The DER only will review events deemed to be external, to provide an additional layer of review for activities with a mix of vaccinated and unvaccinated persons. You can submit your proposals here. This group is tasked with reviewing the scope of proposals and understanding how our COVID-19 protocols will be followed.
Students with questions about this process should contact involvement@slu.edu. Employees with questions should contact events@slu.edu.
Vaccine updates
Many of you have probably heard that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has given full approval of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. This is excellent news for those who were waiting for full approval before getting vaccinated.
SLU will continue to offer vaccine clinics, at least for the short-term; you can register for an appointment here. In addition, Missouri’s vaccine navigator site allows you to search by zip code and vaccine brand to find an appointment.
Booster vaccinations for people who are immunocompromised
Starting Sept. 20, people who are immunocompromised can obtain a booster dose of either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine.
We will be posting schedules to get your booster dose at the Simon Rec Center in the coming weeks. Our partners at SSM Health will also provide booster doses.
You can read more about the announcement from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) here, along with the list of eligible categories for the booster dose.
Booster vaccinations for other eligible adults
The CDC also is recommending a booster dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine for all eligible adults no fewer than eight months after they had completed their two-dose vaccination series.
This recommendation is pending approval from the FDA and the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). We will keep you informed when we have more details about this process and what it means for SLU.
No booster vaccinations yet for people vaccinated with Johnson & Johnson/Janssen
We expect that a booster dose of J&J/Janssen will be recommended at some point. But for now, there is no current guidance on the need for booster shots for those who received the one-and-done vaccine. If and when that happens, you should expect more information from us.
As always, thank you for your continued commitment to public health at SLU.
Stay safe and be well,
Terri Rebmann, Ph.D., RN, CIC, FAPIC
Special Assistant to the President
Director, Institute for Biosecurity
Professor, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics
College for Public Health and Social Justice