Cal State vaccination mandate unevenly enforced

July, with the delta variant of the coronavirus on the rise, California State University announced that all students and employees going to campus would need to prove they were vaccinated against the virus, or apply for a religious or medical exemption, no later than Sept. 30. The move by the nation’s largest four-year public university was driven by “the overarching goal of achieving population-level immunity throughout the CSU,” Cal State Chancellor Joseph Castro wrote.

But while the vaccine mandate likely has helped avoid large outbreaks of COVID-19, it is being unevenly enforced across the system more than a month after the deadline.

Some campuses barred students from in-person classes and on-campus buildings after they failed to upload proof of vaccination or request an exemption, while others allowed them to continue attending.

The lack of enforcement makes some students feel unsafe, and public health experts say it risks undermining the rule’s effectiveness. Yet others, including the Cal

State Student Association and some campus administrators, say the flexibility is necessary to avoid penalizing students who come from communities where they might have less access to the vaccine.

“The policy is that if you’re accessing campus facilities, you need to be vaccinated. How they enforce that is up to the discretion of the campuses,” said Cal State Chancellor’s office spokesperson Michael Uhlenkamp.

The CSU Chancellor’s office is allowing campus presidents to take their needs and resources into account when deciding how to implement the mandate, Uhlenkamp said, but told them to do everything possible to avoid disenrolling students.

Vaccination rates for all students from Cal State’s 23 campuses show that Cal State Stanislaus and Cal State Bakersfield ranked the lowest, with about 66% of their student bodies vaccinated.

Cal State Long Beach, Cal Maritime and San Diego State University have seen near complete compliance with vaccination rates at or above 95%.

The Chancellor’s office began reviewing data on vaccination and exemption requests from students who were only enrolled in in-person classes or other campusbased programs. This data shows considerably higher vaccination rates; the overwhelming majority of in-person students were vaccinated as of Nov. 9. Across the 23 campuses, 18,695 students requested religious exemptions and 4,304 requested medical exemptions.

The way the Chancellor’s office is tracking the numbers, however, could exclude students who are enrolled online but are using campus facilities like libraries and dining halls, depending on the campus’s tracking and enforcement. And knowing that kind of information is key to preventing the virus’ spread on campus, said Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, chair of epidemiology at UCSF. “You should know the rates for everyone,” she said. “Mandates are only as good as your ability to enforce them or monitor them.”

That’s especially important given the large number of Cal State exIn emption requests and the threat of another winter COVID surge, BibbinsDomingo said.

Several campuses told CalMatters they are not enforcing the mandate for students in virtual classes. Cal State Bakersfield exempted 1,113 students and staff who are not accessing campus this semester, a university spokesperson said. Three campuses – Cal Poly Pomona, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and Cal State Monterey Bay – said they approved all exemption requests for students and staff.

Even among students attending in-person classes, enforcement varies by campus. At Cal State Long Beach and Cal State Los Angeles, students who did not upload their vaccine verification or apply for an exemption by the Sept. 30 deadline can still attend in-person classes and visit other buildings on campus — though they are unable to register for spring classes.

Some vaccinated students said they are troubled by the threat of breakthrough infections and the lack of enforcement. Nicolette Elia, a senior studying communication disorders at Cal State Los Angeles, began a petition last month calling for more online classes in the spring semester; as of Nov. 11, it had garnered over 3,600 signatures.

Elia said she is fully vaccinated but is nervous about the possibility of transmitting the virus between campus and the elementary school where she works.

Since her campus is not publicly sharing information about student and staff vaccination rates, she doesn’t know how safe she is from contracting COVID-19 on campus.

There have been no outbreaks on individual campuses of case numbers large enough to change campus operations, Uhlenkamp said. Students can look up their campus’ weekly COVID-19 case numbers on a central website.

But campuses still must work to increase vaccinations, or enforce mask mandates and offer widespread testing on campuses where they don’t want to restrict access, said BibbinsDomingo.

The ideal approach to prevent COVID spread involves carefully vetting exemption requests and enforcing a mandate that actually prevents noncompliant students and faculty from coming to campus — two things her university is doing, said University of Southern California Chief Health Officer Dr. Sarah Van Orman.

But public universities with fewer resources, like the Cal State system, also have to consider their students’ needs and their own capacity for enforcement, Van Orman said.

Even with mixed enforcement, multiple campuses’ student vaccination rates are higher than the counties in which they are located

And though Cal State’s mandate is unevenly enforced, there’s some evidence that it’s increasing vaccination among students. San Jose State’s vaccination rate, for example, increased by 11 percentage points to 85% a little more than two weeks after the self-certification deadline.

Some Cal State campuses have opted for stricter enforcement. Humboldt State placed what the university called a “health and safety hold” on students who had not complied with the vaccine mandate by Sept. 10. When classes began in mid-September, those students could not use campus facilities including classrooms, dining halls and the gym.

Officials were motivated by the delta variant along with a high level of hospitalizations and community transmission in Humboldt County, said Humboldt State spokesperson Grant Scott-Goforth.

Cal State Northridge also moved up the deadline to align with its start of in-person classes and held a vaccination fair where about 200 students got the jab.

Cal State Chico students who did not upload their vaccine verification on time were withdrawn from in-person classes and barred from registering for in-person courses in spring 2022.