New CDC Guidance: Colleges Where ‘Everyone Is Vaccinated’ Can Return to Full, In-Person Learning

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday released new guidance on how colleges can operate safely amid the Covid-19 pandemic, the severity of which is rapidly easing in the United States. Among other things, the guidance states that colleges “where everyone is fully vaccinated” may return to full, in-person learning without requiring or recommending the wearing of masks or requiring that students be regularly tested.

For campuses where not all students and employees will be vaccinated, the CDC’s recommendations are less clear-cut. On those campuses, administrators should take into account the rate of community transmission and the percentage of the campus that is vaccinated, among other factors, in setting policy, the agency said. Among the CDC’s explicit recommendations for these campuses: Unvaccinated students living in on-campus housing should live in single-occupancy rooms “when feasible.”

The new guidance arrives as colleges unveil plans for the fall semester. More than 450 institutions have announced that they will require at least some students or employees to be vaccinated before the academic year begins.

Read the CDC’s guidance, as well as a separate “handbook” from the Education Department that also includes guidance on managing aspects of the pandemic not related to public health, such as the move to online learning.