All UMass students, faculty and staff will need to get a COVID vaccine booster shot soon, the university system announced Tuesday.
It's a new addition to this fall's vaccination requirement, which left nearly all of the system's more than 90,000 students, faculty and staff vaccinated, the announcement noted.
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People with an accepted religious or medical exemption to the vaccine requirement won't need to get the booster shot, either.
"Vaccination is the best defense against COVID-19," President Marty Meehan said in the statement. "The data are clear that vaccination protects us against severe illness and death. I urge everyone to get vaccinated and, as soon as they are eligible, get a booster."
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The announcement didn't put a deadline on when the members of the community would need to get the booster shot. Staff in Meehan's office were required to get a booster shot reasonably soon after they become eligible -- six months after their second Pfizer or Moderna shot or two months after a Johnson & Johnson shot.
The announcement noted that the UMass Amherst, Dartmouth and Chan Medical School had a similar requirement, and UMass Boston and Lowell issued the requirement for students and were negotiating with their unions to require the same for staff.
