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College of Medicine Pandemic Response Friday Round-Up – Week of Jan. 4-8

College of Medicine leaders updated faculty, staff and students on Jan. 8 about the ongoing response to the COVID-19 pandemic:

COM Town Hall Scheduled for Jan. 19

COM Leadership has scheduled a town hall dedicated to our continued COVID response on Tuesday, Jan. 19, at 4 p.m., via Zoom.

To facilitate the flow of information and answer as many questions as possible, please submit your questions ahead of time to drive the content of the presentation. If you have a specific question, please submit it here by noon on Wednesday, Jan. 13.

To add the event to your calendar or for Zoom information, please visit this link.

COVID-19 Vaccination Update

As featured in Thursday’s Daily Brief, Penn State Health expanded its employee COVID vaccinations to the third tier on Jan. 7 and expects to move to the fourth and final tier (where the remainder of our College of Medicine faculty, staff and students who have no patient contact are tiered) early next week. This will enable those Penn State Health and College of Medicine staff and students who want to be vaccinated to be scheduled to do so.

Per the direction of the Pennsylvania Department of Health, the health system has also begun the process of allocating a percentage of its vaccine stock to eligible community health care and emergency medical services providers not affiliated with the health system. The vaccination clinics to this target audience will begin Monday, Jan. 11.

The allocation is not expected to affect the availability or sign-up for vaccines for Penn State Health and College of Medicine staff. For College of Medicine faculty, staff and students:

  • All faculty, staff and students are eligible to receive the vaccine and your information has been provided to the vaccine team. Faculty, staff and students are strongly encouraged to be vaccinated. Educational material on the vaccine was sent to you via email from Compass Support titled “COVID-19 Vaccine Education.
  • All COM students, faculty and employees will receive an email when they can schedule the vaccine using an online scheduling tool. Please wait for this email before calling the vaccine scheduling center.
  • Any questions about your individual situation related to the vaccine should be directed to your personal health care provider.

If you have any questions regarding the vaccine, please refer to the following FAQ document, which is updated regularly as new information is available.

Return-to-Work Authorization Form – Reminder

Reminder to fill out the University Return-to-Work Authorization form if you are currently working on-campus. This form is used by the University to identify those individuals who are eligible for COVID testing. If you have completed this form previously, you do not need to be complete it again. For everyone still working at home, please continue to do so until further notice.

Return COVID Testing For All Students: Prior to the break, we shared with you that students are expected to participate in two different rounds of COVID-19 testing connected to your return to the educational environment. Your first test depends on when you return back to campus. Please refer to the email received from your program coordinator. The second test will be a rapid test, which will be done next Friday and Saturday, Jan. 15 and 16 at the University Conference Center from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. In addition, all students will receive an email directly from IT to their accounts with instructions on how to schedule and the link to do so.

Remote Learning Following the Holidays for Graduate Studies Students: Penn State has decided to delay the start of in-person classes and transition to a fully remote learning environment for the beginning of the spring 2021 semester. For more information, please refer to last week’s email. This delay does not prevent graduate students from performing their research activities in the lab.

University Fitness Center Remains Closed Until Jan. 18

The University Fitness Center will remain closed until at least Jan. 18. COM Leadership will continue to monitor the situation and will reopen when we feel the risk to members is minimal.

In case you missed it

Click below to view the Pandemic Response Email from the previous week:

Week of Dec. 28

COVID-19 cases on campus

The table below summarizes the number of COVID-19 cases among our College of Medicine faculty, staff and students for this past week:

College of Medicine statistics

Notes

  • Current employees/students represents the number who have shown symptoms this week.
  • Total employees/students represents the number who have been quarantined or tested positive for COVID-19 since March 2020 (for employees) or July 2020 (for students)

If you're having trouble accessing this content, or would like it in another format, please email the Penn State College of Medicine web department.