Rutgers To Require Vaccine Proof For All Returning Students

Rutgers To Require Vaccine Proof For 'All Students Planning To Attend This Fall' The New Jersey school says its new COVID-19 requirement will help it make "a full return to our pre-pandemic normal" on campus. NPR.org

Rutgers University will require students who are enrolling for the 2021 fall semester to show they've received a COVID-19 vaccine. The New Jersey state school says the requirement will help it make "a full return to our pre-pandemic normal" on campus for the next school year.

"Proof of vaccination will be required for all students planning to attend this fall," Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway and other university leaders said Thursday in a statement about the new requirement.

Rutgers is believed to be the first large university in the U.S., and possibly the first college of any size in the country, to initiate a COVID-19 vaccine requirement.

The school is also urging all faculty and staff to get immunized as soon as they can. The message cited President Biden's recent comments in which he said every adult in the U.S. should be able to get at least one vaccine shot by early summer.

Rutgers already requires new or transferring students to show proof of receiving several vaccines, hoping to prevent on-campus cases of diseases from measles, mumps and rubella to hepatitis B and meningitis. ...

In a move that could help the vaccination effort, Rutgers said that New Jersey officials recently approved the university's health clinics to administer vaccine shots on campus for faculty, staff and students when vaccine doses become available — which has not yet happened. ...