Vaccinated College Students Return to in-person Classes in SF

Summer is over for SF State and University of San Francisco Students & faculty, both began in-person classes this week, after over a year of ‘remote learning’.

San Francisco State University is back in session.  Image Facebook

Both campuses have strict COVID 19 vaccine policies, essentially requiring vaccination for all students and faculty on campus doing in-person learning, unless they’ve applied for an exemption for “a serious medical condition or a strongly held religious conviction.”

Both the large state school (SF State approx. 30k students) and the smaller private catholic school (USF approx. 6,500 students) require a student to submit a written exemption statement in order to be excused from the covid vaccination mandate, for religious purposes.   Your Doctor can give you a medical exemption but those are very rare.

I wonder what a ‘religious exemption’ from a catholic school kid looks like?  Especially since Pope Francis gave all the vaccines the papal ‘thumbs up’ this summer.

If you’re an SF State Student your ‘Student Welcome Pack’ includes a mask, disinfectant wipes and gel.  Things sure have changed since I was a Freshman.

At UC Hastings Law School, there is also a mandatory vaccine policy but as you might expect from a law school, their covid policy is 13 pages long and packed with legalize and addendums.  Those lawyers certainly like to use a lot more words to say the same thing.

You have to be vaccinated if you want to go to classes in-person, period.

At SF State, if you have not already uploaded proof of vaccination, or requested an exemption, you would have been “disenrolled from any face-to-face courses in which you are registered”.  It’s safe to say they are taking things seriously.

SF State even has a ‘COVID-19 tracker’, in total there have been 52 cases of COVID-19 infection among students, staff and faculty since Aug. 1, 2021. Those on-campus are required to report exposure using this survey.

ITS is thrilled to welcome back our SF State Gators to campus! Here’s a shot of a few of ITS’s finest offering assistance to students in the Quad. If you need any support this week, visit our ITS table outside the library! We wish everyone a wonderful fall semester! pic.twitter.com/hFrG4GLHdd

— ITS @ SFSU (@SFSU_ITS) August 23, 2021

With such strict vaccination mandates on campuses one might suppose that the sf student population is effectively more vaccinated than SF’s general general population.  As of today 79% of San Franciscans over 12 years old are fully vaccinated, I bet the students have us beat there.

All campuses ask students to wear masks indoors per state guidelines.

Go Gators!