This message was sent by the Operations Planning Group to Bryn Mawr College faculty and staff on Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2020.
Dear BMC Faculty and Staff,
We write to share preliminary information about how Bryn Mawr may approach vaccinations against COVID this spring. We hope that a COVID vaccine will start to become available soon, at least to some of our faculty and staff.
We strongly encourage you to take the vaccine as soon as you become eligible (assuming your medical professional does not advise against it for you). Getting vaccinated will protect you; it is not a guarantee that you won’t contract the virus, but it will be valuable in preventing you from becoming severely ill as a result. Widespread vaccination will slow the spread of the virus, provide desperately needed relief for our over-burdened colleagues in the healthcare field, and create capacity in our hospitals, ensuring people who need assistance are not crowded out by the COVID surge. In addition and very importantly, mass vaccination also hampers the emergence of new mutations which otherwise could re-start the pandemic.
We are in regular communication with the Montgomery County Office of Public Health, and we completed the process to qualify as a potential distribution site. That said, Montgomery County has not yet made decisions about the logistics of the next rounds of vaccination; we don’t know whether or not they will use campuses like ours for COVID vaccine distribution. If we receive the vaccine, we may have little notice or flexibility in when and to whom we distribute the doses we are allotted. We will of course let you know if/when we learn more. Meantime, please regularly check websites from your local health system, Montgomery County, and/or your county of residence for updates and plan to get the vaccine as soon as you qualify, through whatever location/process is designated. As people are vaccinated, we can begin again to enjoy some of the activities we have been missing.
Thank you,
Operations Planning Group:
Kim Cassidy, President
Don Abramowitz, COVID-19 Officer, Environmental Health and Safety Officer
Nina Bisbee, Director, Facilities Services
Kari Fazio. Chief Financial Officer and Chief Administrative Officer
Reggie Jones, Associate Dean of Health and Wellness
Beth Kotarski, Medical Services Director
Angie Sheets, Director of Residential Life
Jennifer Walters, Dean of the Undergraduate College