Purdue 'strongly encouraging' vaccinations before return to campus this fall

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind — Purdue University President Mitch Daniels is urging Boilermakers to get vaccinated before returning to campus in the fall.

In a video posted to the university's YouTube page Tuesday, Daniels said university officials were "strongly encouraging" those on campus to get the COVID-19. 

"The vaccines can no longer be called experimental. They've been administered to hundreds of millions of people and they work wondrously. They protect the person vaccinated and they protect others," Daniels said.

He said those who decide not to get vaccinated will be tested regularly for the virus, just as the campus community faced this past school year.

"The higher the percentage of us all who chose vaccination, the more open campus can be and there may be activities we can make available to those vaccinated, but not those who decline," Daniels said.

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Daniels said the university hopes to be able to ease some of the COVID-related restrictions on campus, but added that the administration would "continue to make all close calls on the side of caution and safety."

"Success in year one guarantees nothing about year two," he said.

The video was sent to members of the campus community with the following letter from Daniels: 

Dear Boilermakers,  

It’s springtime in Indiana and this year, the optimism and hope we feel isn’t just about the weather. We’ve already been able to ease up on some of our COVID-related restrictions, and we look forward to many more such decisions. Meanwhile, the facts are changing frequently: the spread of vaccines is a huge plus, while the emergence of new variant strains is a cause for new concern. We will continue to make all close calls on the side of caution and safety. 

To help you plan ahead for the next academic year, I send the below video with our current thinking. You also will find more details in regards to vaccines, testing and other protocols in an upcoming email from the Protect Purdue Health Center.

We are a community that just showed a skeptical world what Boilermakers working together can do. Let’s all resolve to do it again on the path back to normalcy and the wide-open campus we all love.

Boiler Up,
Mitch