2% of UConn students request exemption from vaccine requirement
STORRS — A small group of roughly 2 percent of University of Connecticut students has requested non-medical exemptions from the school’s vaccine requirement.
Connecticut Public Media reported this week that more than 800 UConn students have asked for exemptions to the school’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate this fall.
The school enrolled almost 33,000 students last year, including about 19,000 undergraduates, on its main campus in Storrs.
The deadline to request an exemption was officially July 15.
At least 771 of those requests were for non-medical reasons, such as religious or philosophical beliefs, or hesitancy about the vaccine. As of late July, 504 of those appeals have been granted, and Stephanie Reitz, a UConn spokesperson, confirmed that as of Friday, none had been denied.
More than 50 medical exemption requests, with signed statements from physicians, were received and approved by the university’s Student Health and Wellness department.
The requests for exemptions were made public in court documents after a group of students and parents sued the university’s board of trustees last month in U.S. District Court. UConn has asked to have the lawsuit dismissed, saying those students have received waivers or did not apply for them.
A large majority of UConn students have already been vaccinated. As of Wednesday, 92 percent of Storrs residential students reported they were partially or fully vaccinated, according to university vaccine data.
“Although the university hadn’t set a specific minimum, having a vaccination rate higher than 90 percent gives us confidence in a healthy opening,” said Reitz. “Students indicated last spring in strong numbers that they intended to get the vaccine when it became available to them, so while we aren’t surprised by the high figures, we’re pleased and grateful.”
The COVID-19 dashboard is updated weekly and, starting Aug. 11, will include off-campus and regional campus students.
Reitz said UConn received additional confirmations of vaccination statuses in the past week, so the university’s next update will see that number rise, though she did not know by how much.
“However, it’s still important to emphasize that the Delta variant and other possible variants do cause real concern,” said Reitz, “so UConn intends to open with other safety measures also in place, including indoor masking.
“The university also has rooms set aside for isolation and medical quarantine where any students who do contract COVID can safely and comfortably receive treatment away from others,” she said.
Students who return to campus unvaccinated will need to comply with additional preventive measures, including pre-arrival and arrival COVID-19 testing, weekly surveillance testing, close-contact quarantine and masking requirements, according to school officials.
In the case of an on-campus outbreak, unvaccinated students “may be excluded” from campus until the outbreak is declared over, Reitz said.
The UConn board of trustees unanimously passed the student vaccine mandate in June.
“There are many things that we can do to safely and successfully open in the fall,” interim president Andrew Agwunobi, the CEO of UConn Health, said at the time. “But perhaps the single most important step that we can take towards ensuring the safe and successful opening in the fall is vaccinating as many students as possible.”
Agwunobi said part of his rationale for the vaccine mandate was to lessen the impact of a possible fall surge in COVID-19 cases. Those concerns materialized with the rise of the more contagious Delta variant: On Thursday, the state reported a daily positivity rate of 2.72 percent for new COVID-19 tests.
UConn is one of many Connecticut colleges and universities to require the COVID-19 vaccine ahead of this fall term. The list includes Fairfield University, University of Bridgeport, University of New Haven, University of Hartford, Quinnipiac University, Trinity College, Wesleyan University and Yale University.
The Connecticut state college system has also mandated the shot. Sacred Heart University was among the few holdouts. Two weeks ago, the school reversed course and decided to make the vaccine mandatory, citing concerns about the delta variant.