Survey Reveals Majority of Campus Community Is Vaccinated
By Gera Jochum
An overwhelmingly high response rate to the COVID-19 vaccine survey sent via email in late May indicates the majority of Carnegie Mellon’s Pittsburgh campus community has been vaccinated.
All faculty, staff and returning students were strongly encouraged to respond to the survey to help inform the university’s mitigation protocols, posture and plans. When the survey closed on June 29, 65% of the campus community — students, faculty and staff — responded to the survey, and, of those respondents, 90% revealed they were fully vaccinated. Another 9% indicated that they are in the process of being fully vaccinated.
A deeper dive into the results shows 77% of faculty, 70% of staff, and 62% of returning students responded. Of those respondents, 97% of faculty, 93% of staff and 88% of returning students said they were fully vaccinated. The information has been added to CMU’s COVID Dashboard webpage.
“We decided to ease COVID-19 restrictions for now based on the tremendous response rate to our vaccine survey and the very high percentage of respondents who indicated they have been vaccinated,” said Daryl Weinert, CMU’s vice president for operations and COVID-19 coordinator.
In CMU’s June 7 COVID response update, the university announced that fully vaccinated individuals no longer need to wear facial coverings on campus (including inside campus facilities), complete the daily self-assessment or participate in Tartan Testing before coming to campus. It added that on July 1, CMU would enter a Transitional Posture, which as the name suggests, is designed to support the campus community as it transitions back to in-person experiences this fall.
“Widespread vaccination is a critical tool to help stop the COVID-19 pandemic, and we encourage all members of our community to get vaccinated,” Weinert said.
As announced on May 11, Carnegie Mellon joined a growing number of colleges and universities that will require all enrolled undergraduate and graduate students in U.S.-based programs to be vaccinated for COVID-19 this fall. In July, CMU will be rolling out a database for all members of the campus community to upload verification of their vaccination.
Like the information collected from the email survey, information in the vaccine database will be maintained in accordance with the university's COVID-19 Vaccination Data Collection Privacy Notice.
More details about the database and upcoming vaccination clinics at CMU are expected in the coming days and weeks. Several vaccination clinics will be held on campus later this summer and fall for those members of the campus community who have not yet been vaccinated.