Duke University employees who are not vaccinated on Oct. 1 will be at risk of being fired.
University employees will have until 10 a.m. on Oct. 1 to show documentation of the full COVID-19 vaccination, according to a notice released by Duke on Sunday.
People who are not inoculated that day will be placed on unpaid administrative leave and will be issued a “final written notice”. They will then have seven days to receive the Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine or the first shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines.
Staff members who are not inoculated within these seven days will be dismissed.
People who receive a first shot of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine will have up to six weeks to prove the documentation they have completed the series of vaccinations, according to the university. If they do not receive their second shots during this period, they will be unsubscribed.
Faculty members terminated for non-compliance with vaccine requirement “he would not be eligible to re-contract with Duke in the future, ”the university noted.
Despite the new vaccination requirement, the school still allows employees to apply for a medical or religious exemption. However, anyone approved under these parameters will be required to wear masks, monitor symptoms on a daily basis, undergo weekly surveillance tests, and follow other COVID-19 mitigation protocols.
More than 91% of Duke’s 22,136 employees are vaccinated, according to the university.
The new guidance will not affect vaccination policies and deadlines for Duke School of Medicine, the School of Nursing and the University Health System. According to the university, the deadline for these institutions is still at 10 a.m. on September 21st.
The new regulation for Duke employees comes after the university announced in April that it would require all students to submit vaccination tests before returning to campus during the fall semester.
Several universities across the country also require students and staff to be vaccinated as a requirement to return to campus during the fall semester, including Ohio State University, the University of Michigan and the University of Indiana.
Policies come as the country sees an increase in COVID-19 cases driven largely by the highly infectious delta variant, which has established itself as the dominant strain in the United States.