To ACPHS Community,
Given recent news of rapidly changing COVID guidelines, we wanted to provide clarification around the College’s COVID policies, including our policy for mask wearing on campus.
On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) issued a
revised set of COVID guidelines, including new metrics and classifications for community levels of COVID risk. The guidelines have been revised to help communities determine how to set policies based on the latest local data. Community levels can be low, medium, or high, and are determined by the number of hospital beds in use, the number of hospital admissions, and the total number of new COVID cases in a region.
We are pleased to see lower COVID rates on our campus and across New York State in recent days. Based on
current CDC data,
Albany County is classified at the Medium Level.
Yesterday,
Governor Hochul announced that beginning Wednesday, March 2, masks will no longer be required in schools in New York State counties with Low or Medium COVID levels.
Based on this new information, the ACPHS COVID Prevention and Response Committee recommends the following:
- All members of the community are still required to wear masks on campus while we reevaluate our campus COVID policies.
- We will continue to closely monitor rates of infection as we reevaluate our campus policies, and we will provide an update during the week of Spring Break.
- We will continue weekly testing for vaccine exempt students and employees.
- All campus community members should continue to submit daily health screenings when on campus.
COVID-19 Booster
All students and employees
who are eligible are required to get their COVID-19 booster and
upload documentation into ShareMy.Health. You are eligible to receive your booster dose five months after the last dose of the Pfizer or Moderna series or two months after Janssen/J&J. Those who are not currently eligible, must receive their booster within 14 days of becoming eligible. If you have received a primary series of a WHO-listed vaccine not available in the United States, and it has been at least six months since your last dose, we are following CDC guidance and advise that you receive a booster dose of vaccine with only the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. If you need a religious or medical exemption to our vaccine requirements, please contact Theresa Setzer at
theresa.setzer@acphs.edu.
Continuing Campus COVID Testing
Our campus testing center will continue to test students and employees who are symptomatic or who have been exposed to COVID. We are also continuing weekly testing for vaccine exempt students and employees. The campus testing center is in the Holland Building (HAB B209) and will be open Monday through Friday from 9:30am to 3:00pm. Appointments can be scheduled using:
https://acphscovidtesting.timetap.com/#/
Continuing Daily Health Screening
Students and employees must continue to complete the daily health screener. Anyone experiencing symptoms is expected to stay home and contact
COVIDTesting@acphs.edu to schedule an appointment. Symptoms include:
- Fever or chills
- Cough
- Shortness of breath or difficulty breathing
- Fatigue
- Muscle or body aches
- Headache
- New loss of taste or smell
- Sore throat
- Congestion or runny nose
- Nausea or vomiting
- Diarrhea
If you have questions regarding testing, boosters, or daily health screening, please email
COVIDTesting@acphs.edu.
Thank you for your ongoing compliance with campus health guidance and for doing your part to keep our ACPHS community safe.
Greg Dewey
ACPHS President
