Niagara Region university and college students must be vaxxed to live in residence
Published July 27, 2021 at 1:59 pm
Both Brock University in St Catharines and Niagara College in Niagara-on-the-Lake are not going to play a game of semantics with anti-vaxxers.
Any students who want to live in residence for the 2021-2022 school year must have at least their first COVID-19 vaccine shot with the two second scheduled within the first two weeks of school or they will not be permitted to re-enter on-campus residences.
Period. End of story.
While Niagara College made this announcement several weeks back, Brock University just released their mandate last night (July 26).
Brock will recognize Health Canada-approved vaccines as well as vaccines on the World Health Organization’s Emergency Use Listing. Exemptions will be allowed based on medical and Ontario Human Rights Code grounds.
Aside from the university itself, the Brock University Student Union (BUSU) is firmly on board with the plan.
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“Canada’s vaccination rate remains among the highest in the world, but unfortunately our age demographic from 18 to 29 has one of the lowest rates of fully vaccinated people,” said BUSU President Rafay Rehan.
“We’re getting clear messaging out to students on how this is our shot to get back to doing the things we love and getting back to campus life,” he continued. “These next few weeks are critical to our campaign, especially with the first day of classes around the corner.”
There are encouraging signs that the school’s students are agreeable to the vaccination strategy.
Prior to the University’s mandatory vaccine announcement for residence students yesterday, more than 2,000 undergraduates and graduate students planning to live in residence rooms responded to an anonymous survey about their plans with more than 94 per cent reporting they were planning to get vaccinated.
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