Campus vaccination rates are being pooled in left and right from voluntary vaccine status surveys given to students, faculty and staff.
The largest population who has been fully vaccinated on campus is full time faculty at 88% with permeant and fulltime faculty falling close behind at 76%.
However, only 44% of students who live on and off campus have been fully vaccinated. With an estimated 12,000 students, based on the previous year enrollment rate, that means over 6,500 students are estimated to not have been fully vaccinated.
WCU is giving $500 cash incentive to 32 students and 16 faculty and staff who have been fully vaccinated by October 1. Four students and two employees will be selected from the months February until September, for when they received their vaccinations. To submit vaccination status click here for more details.
WCU is also adopting and refining the “get vaccinated or get tested regularly” from the UNC System schools. Therefore, any student, faculty or staff who are not vaccinated before Oct. 1 will need to get tested for COVID-19 regularly. The university has not given specific details yet about how regularly people will need to be tested.
In June, WCU planned to only require masks in classroom settings, buildings that offer health services and in university public transportation. Due to the Delta COVID-19 variant causing increased positive cases and hospitalizations, face masks were made mandatory in all buildings on campus at the beginning of August.
WCU students are not required to get vaccinated to attend in-person classroom setting in the fall 2021 semester but, “If you have not yet been vaccinated against COVID-19, I strongly and urgently encourage you to do so at your earliest opportunity,” said WCU Chancellor Kelli Brown in a statement sent to WCU community.
Buildings on campus such as the library, recreational facilities, dining areas and campus buildings have increased their capacity and residential living is now at full capacity, Brown said.
Students can receive a free COVID-19 vaccine on campus. To schedule an appointment or learn more information call Health Services at (828) 227-7640 or visit WCU COVID-19 Regional Vaccine Clinic page.
According to the CDC, over 38 million people in the United States has tested positive for COVID-19 and 153,572 new cases as of Aug. 24. North Carolina has over 1 million people who has tested positive with 5,779 people testing positive on Aug. 24.
Jackson County has 4,281 positive cases of COVID-19 with 14 new cases as of Aug. 25 according to The New York Times.
