Important COVID-19 Updates

Dear Faculty, Staff and Students:

As we end another semester and prepare for the summer and fall, I want to share important updates regarding our COVID-19 operations and protocols. These coincide with the May 11th end of the Federal Public Health Emergency for COVID-19 and the World Health Organization’s announcement that COVID-19 is no longer a global health emergency. The number of COVID-19 cases reported among our campus population is very small, and we are aligning with higher education peers to ensure our approach is consistent with best practices.

On May 12, we will decommission Tartan Testing operations and the lab. We will also begin gradually removing COVID-19 facial coverings signage from campus. COVID-19 tests and facial coverings will be available in the vending machine located in the Cohon University Center until supplies are depleted.
Facial coverings will be optional at University Health Services. Exceptions include students with symptoms of infectious disease and clinicians who are a close contact of someone with COVID-19 or in the isolation period for masking after a COVID-19 infection. Students may ask a provider to wear a facial covering.
Effective August 1, we will discontinue the COVID-19 vaccination and booster requirement for faculty, staff and students. However, we will continue to strongly recommend vaccinations.
Starting with summer programming on May 15, we will discontinue all remaining COVID-19 risk mitigation protocols. However, we will maintain the requirement for students in pre-college programs to be vaccinated in order to participate in this summer’s programs.
As we transition into the summer and fall, we will no longer require reporting COVID-19 cases and we will suspend our internal COVID-19 dashboards. Community members who contract COVID-19 should follow the guidance of their care provider regarding isolation, as they would with any communicable disease.
On August 1, Health Connect access for faculty and staff ends (access does not change for students). You can download a copy of your records from Health Connect before then. After that date, your data will be securely stored electronically for 10 years and a copy of your record is available by submitting this form.
Content from the COVID-19 Updates website will move to other existing pages, including those for University Health Services, Community Health and Well-Being, Enterprise Risk Management and others. This change ensures easy access to necessary guidance and support without a separate COVID-19 updates site.

I expect this will be the final message you’ll receive from the Carnegie Mellon COVID-19 Coordinator. I appreciate your resilience and cooperation throughout this challenging period and the hard work of everyone at CMU who supported our pandemic response.

With gratitude,

Stan Waddell
Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer, and COVID-19 Coordinator