Almost all SU students, faculty on campus fully vaccinated as NY emergency ends

Syracuse University announced Wednesday that 90% of students on campus this summer and 97% of faculty and benefit-eligible staff have been fully vaccinated. 

Additionally, 99% of university employees are at least partially vaccinated when factoring in employees who received the first of a two-dose vaccine, according to an SU news release.

Since June 1, the university has required students, faculty and staff on campus during the summer or fall to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.

Dr. Karen Nardella, the medical director at the Barnes Center at The Arch, said in the news release that she has been impressed by the community’s response to the pandemic. The high rate of vaccine compliance is a positive step in the right direction against COVID-19, she said

“These numbers are very exciting because a large majority of our campus is immunized, which makes campus a safer place to be,” Nardella said.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo also announced that the state’s disaster emergency for COVID-19 will end Thursday. The state disaster emergency initially went into effect March 7, 2020 — over 15 months ago.

In central New York, the seven-day average positivity rate on June 22 was 0.49% — slightly higher than the state-wide average of 0.36%.

Along with the announcement, the state published data regarding COVID-19 vaccination rates. As of today, over 20 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered across the state, with over 52 thousand of those doses administered in the past 24 hours.  

“This doesn’t mean COVID is gone, we still have to get more New Yorkers vaccinated, but we are getting back on track and starting to live life once again,” Cuomo said in the press release.