UL System to require masks, possibly vaccines

The University of Louisiana System, including Louisiana Tech University and Grambling State University, will require masks indoors this fall. The system has also petitioned the state to add the COVID-19 vaccine to the list of required immunizations at each university.

Those are the two biggest changes in the new COVID guidance issued by ULS President Jim Henderson Monday.

“As we near the beginning of the fall term, we find ourselves in a fourth wave of rapidly increasing COVID-19 infection and hospitalization,” Henderson said in a statement to faculty and staff.

The university system has asked the Louisiana Department of Health to add the COVID vaccine to the required immunization schedules at all nine member institutions — but only once the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has given its full approval to the inoculation.

When the vaccines first hit the market, the FDA gave them authorization for emergency use, which is not the same as approval.

“We expect that FDA approval in the coming weeks, and all universities will communicate the new requirement to continuing and entering students now for planning purposes,”Henderson said.

However, vaccine requirements at Louisiana institutions aren’t exactly requirements at all.

State law provides for “philosophical dissent,” meaning anyone can circumvent a university’s immunization mandate by submitting a written dissent to the vaccine.

The only way a student would actually be excluded from attendance for failing to get the vaccine is if the state Office of Public Health recommends that be done.

“That recommendation has not been made and very likely cannot be made until an FDA approved vaccine is available,” Henderson said.

Meanwhile, ULS schools will also require everyone to wear a mask when inside campus buildings, regardless of vaccination status, as long as the school is in an area identified by the LDH as high or substantial risk of virus transmission.

At present, the entire state fits that category.

Grambling State was already requiring masks indoors and planned to continue doing so through the fall semester. It was one of only two ULS members to do so. Meanwhile, Tech had planned to strongly encourage masking but not mandate it.

Now Tech will follow the new system guidance, according to the communications office.

Henderson said the system’s changes are based on recommendations from national, state and local health authorities and particularly the Centers for Disease Control.

The CDC has updated its own guidance in recent weeks in response to the surge of the Delta variant of COVID-19, which experts say is at least twice as transmissible as the original virus strain.

“The vaccines remain highly effective in protecting the vaccinated from severe disease, hospitalization, and death even against the highly transmissible Delta variant,” Henderson said. “Symptomatic breakthrough infection remains uncommon; however, data indicate the vaccined who are infected may transmit the virus at similar levels to the unvaccinated.

“This is further support for universal masking in our facilities.”

Last academic year, Tech recorded its own weekly figures of positive cases reported among students and employees and posted them on its website. Both Tech and Grambling State also sent their case numbers to the LDH, which posted them in a dashboard on its site.

Tech will not continue the reporting on its website this year, but officials said the LDH has indicated it will continue to maintain its dashboard.

Fall semester classes at GSU begin Aug. 16, with Tech classes kicking off Sept. 9.