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09/19/2024 | News release | Distributed by Public on 09/20/2024 03:58

BU Will Provide COVID Boosters, Flu Shots to Students, Faculty, and Staff

BU Will Provide COVID Boosters, Flu Shots to Students, Faculty, and Staff

Clinics will offer vaccination appointments throughout fall semester

Throughout the fall, BU will offer free flu and COVID-19 booster shots, by appointment, to faculty, students, and staff.

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BU Will Provide COVID Boosters, Flu Shots to Students, Faculty, and Staff

Clinics will offer vaccination appointments throughout fall semester

September 19, 2024
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BU will offer free COVID-19 booster shots and flu shots, by appointment, for faculty, staff, and students throughout the fall semester.

Clinics for faculty and staff begin September 30 on the Charles River Campus (at FitRec's 3 court gym, accessible from Buick Street) and on the Medical Campus at the Instructional Building Hiebert Lounge, 72 E. Concord St. To book an appointment, go to the University's Occupational Health Center (OHC) scheduling site. Students meanwhile can use Patient Connect-Student Health Services secure, online health management and communications portal-to schedule their shots. (Walk-ins will be accommodated if scheduling permits.) Free hand sanitizers, tissues, masks, and cleaning wipes will be distributed at the clinics as well.

Judy Platt, chief health officer and executive director of Student Health Services, announced the clinics in an email to the University community September 19. "We want to give everyone a chance to reduce their risk of serious complications from these viruses and hope to see a large turnout," she tells BU Today.

The OHC website notes that the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) "continues to strongly recommend that everyone ages six months and older receive their seasonal flu vaccine and most up-to-date COVID-19 vaccine each year."

Platt says the clinics will offer Moderna's Spikevax COVID vaccine. It's the newest vaccine, she says, and targets the KP2 variant, which earlier this year became the dominant form of the virus in the United States.

Platt's email cited BU's updated COVID-19 vaccination policy:

The general University population is strongly urged to stay up to date with CDC COVID-19 vaccination recommendations.

Healthcare personnel working in BU's DPH-licensed healthcare facilities are required to have an up-to-date COVID-19 vaccination or else submit a declination after reviewing the risks and benefits of vaccination.

Medical, dental, and physician assistant students will be required to have an up-to-date COVID-19 vaccination or to submit a declination after reviewing the risks and benefits of vaccination.

The email from Platt also noted that the federal government continues to provide free, rapid-antigen COVID-19 tests.

"If you are sick with a respiratory virus, including COVID-19, please stay home until your symptoms improve," Platt wrote. DPH "guidelines have evolved to align COVID-19 with other common respiratory diseases like influenza. It is recommended to stay home and away from others until your symptoms are improving and you are fever-free for at least 24 hours."

Her email included recommended ways for people to protect themselves and others from respiratory illnesses this fall and winter. "If you need to be around others while feeling ill," she wrote, "please wear a mask while you are experiencing symptoms and for at least 5 days if you test positive for COVID-19. Healthcare personnel continue to have specific return to work guidelines."

If you need to be around others while feeling ill, please wear a mask while you are experiencing symptoms and for at least 5 days if you test positive for COVID-19.
Judy Platt

The University has long offered free flu shots to faculty and staff and last year began including free COVID booster shots.

Boston University created the Chief Health Office last year to formalize the pandemic-era collaboration among SHS, BU's Research Occupational Health Program (which serves the health needs of University scientific researchers), and theOHC (serving other University employees). Those offices crafted what they call a "unified health service" to coordinate the campus' symptom screening, testing, and contact tracing.

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  • Rich Barlow

    Senior Writer

    Rich Barlow is a senior writer at BU Today and Bostonia magazine. Perhaps the only native of Trenton, N.J., who will volunteer his birthplace without police interrogation, he graduated from Dartmouth College, spent 20 years as a small-town newspaper reporter, and is a former Boston Globe religion columnist, book reviewer, and occasional op-ed contributor. Profile

  • Jackie Ricciardi

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    Jackie Ricciardi is a staff photojournalist at BU Today and Bostonia magazine. She has worked as a staff photographer at newspapers that include the Augusta Chronicle in Augusta, Ga., and at Seacoast Media Group in Portsmouth, N.H., where she was twice named New Hampshire Press Photographer of the Year. Profile

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