Booster Mandate - December 22, 2021

Dear FSU Community,

Let me start off by thanking everyone for an outstanding semester. I'm so grateful for your efforts to keep our community safe during this past fall.

Unfortunately, those efforts are going to be even more important moving forward, as the new Omicron variant has the country bracing for what is expected to be a large surge in cases.

The University is joining the rest of the Massachusetts State University System in requiring all students, faculty and staff to get booster shots within 30 days of becoming eligible. Anyone over the age of 16 is eligible to receive their booster shots six months after getting their second Pfizer or Moderna shots, or two months after the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

Everyone who is currently eligible to receive a booster shot should do so prior to returning to campus for the start of the Spring Semester. For those who are not yet eligible, you should make plans to get one as soon as you become eligible. The Mass Vax Finder tool remains available to everyone to find a convenient location for a booster shot.

Employees can update the HR Portal with their booster shot information, while students should update their status on the Medicat portal.

The community should also anticipate enhanced asymptomatic testing measures at the start of next semester for individuals who are working, learning or living on campus. As our current headlines show a number of colleges and universities preparing to begin their spring semesters in remote mode.FSU will make that determination after January 1 when we have a better picture of the status of the current outbreak. One determinant will certainly be the rate of uptake of the COVID booster by our student and employee populations and an increase in COVID testing by the university to offset the increase of positive cases across the Commonwealth and the country.

We will provide more details when they become available. Thank you in advance for your compliance with these important new public safety mandates.

I wish you all a wonderful, safe, and productive holiday break.

Javier