COVID-19 2022-2023 Protocols

The health and safety of our community remains our highest priority.

We continue to review our health and safety guidelines regularly. We appreciate your flexibility as we may adjust our policies to best position ourselves for a healthy academic year.

First, what hasn’t changed: Students and employees should stay home if they have any symptoms of COVID-19, regardless of vaccination or close contact status.

Student Protocols

Masks

Masking at Vermont Tech is optional. This includes all indoor spaces (except the health center) and campus vehicles. Please note that some specific majors will still require masks in educational settings due to the nature of the program (e.g., clinical and some lab settings).

Students, staff, and faculty should feel welcome and empowered to continue to mask if they feel more comfortable doing so. We know that each of you will honor those individual masking decisions as you encounter friends, family, and members of the public who feel safer masking or who are safer masking because of health conditions.

If the Vermont Department of Health recommendations regarding masking become more restrictive, we may reinstate our masking policy to protect our community.

Vaccination & Boosters

Initial vaccination for COVID-19 is required for all students. Students are also highly encouraged to receive the COVID-19 booster(s) when eligible. Per the CDC and the Vermont Department of Health, vaccines are the best tool we have to protect ourselves against COVID-19, especially from severe illness, hospitalization and death.

Please note, health professions students are required to be boosted, if eligible, due to educational requirements in clinical settings and caring for those who have an increased risk of severe illness, prolonged hospitalization and death if they contract COVID-19.

For more information on how to receive your vaccine or booster, please visit the Vermont Department of Health.

Testing

Before you return to campus for the fall 2022 semester:

• If you are symptomatic, do not come to campus. Test and stay home (see below).
• If you are a commuter student, it is highly recommended that you take a pre-arrival test within 24 hours of attending your first class/lab session.
• If you are a residential student, you will be issued an antigen test upon arrival to campus (Welcome Weekend). You will need to complete the test and show a negative result before being permitted to move into your dorm room. Residential students are encouraged to perform their own antigen test prior to traveling to campus for move-in.

Free antigen tests are available from Health Services in Randolph, Public Safety, Jean-Marie Clark in Williston, and Site Directors at the nursing sites.

If you have COVID-19 Symptoms

If you are experiencing COVID-19 symptoms, then do the following:

• Stay home or in your room.
• Wear a mask, test (antigen, PCR or LAMP), and stay away from others.
• If you use antigen testing, take two tests 24 hours apart.

Wait until all test results come back before returning to class. If negative antigen tests, it is recommended that you confirm your negative result with a PCR or LAMP test.

If you are COVID-19 Positive

If you have a positive antigen, PCR or LAMP test, you do not need to retest to confirm the positive. If you test positive:

• Complete the self-reporting form: COVID-19 Positive Self-Reporting Form
• Stay home and isolate for 5 full days.
• Day 0 is the day your positive test was collected or the day that symptoms started.
• If you are a student living in a dorm, please go home to recover. If it is not possible for you to go home, remain in your room and notify healthservicesC19@vtc.edu for instructions on meal pick-up.
• You may leave isolation after day 5 without retesting if:
  • Your symptoms are improving AND
  • You are fever free for 24 hours without fever reducing medications.
• Notify your close contacts that you have tested positive as soon as possible.

Vermont Tech does not have isolation housing for COVID-19 positive students. If a student cannot go home, they will recover in their rooms. Roommates of COVID-19 positive students are not relocated to another room, as they have already been exposed to COVID-19 during their roommate’s infectious period. Roommates are encouraged to mask and keep their distance as best as possible. Please see the close contact instructions below.

If You are a Close Contact

If you are up to date on your vaccine/booster(s), meaning

• You had your booster shot OR
• You completed your Pfizer or Moderna vaccine series within the last 5 months OR
• You completed your Johnson & Johnson vaccine within the last 2 months

Then do the following:

• You do not need to mask.
• You do not need to quarantine.
• If you become symptomatic, test and stay home (see above).

If you are not up to date on your vaccines/booster(s) or you are not vaccinated.

Then do the following:

• You do not need to mask.
• You do not need to quarantine.
• No earlier than day 4, take two antigen tests 24 hours apart (or longer) OR
• On or after day 5 take a PCR or LAMP test.
• If you become symptomatic, test and stay home (see above).

Contract Tracing

Vermont Tech does not perform contract tracing for COVID-19 positive students. Positive students are responsible for identifying and notifying their own close contacts. For assistance with notification of close contacts, please email studentaffairs@vtc.edu.

A close contact is defined as being within 6 feet, for a total of 15 minutes or more within a 24-hour period, of someone with COVID during their infectious period (2 days prior to symptoms starting or positive test). Examples: Live in the same house, ride in a car together, intimate partners, had dinner together, sat within 6 feet during class.