Since the start of the pandemic, Saint Louis University has successfully managed our COVID-19 response, guided by sound science, data, collaboration and our Jesuit values.
For the fall 2023 semester, required testing and isolation are some of the few COVID safeguards we have in place for fall semester. We have no desire to return to heightened public health protocols — unless on- and off-campus data, and our values, dictate we do so.
In a message to the University community on April 3, President Pestello summarized COVID protocols that had been immediately rescinded or scaled back as of that date.
Below are the modified COVID safeguards for the Fall 2023 and Spring 2024 semesters:
- COVID symptoms and testing
- New isolation protocol for students, faculty and staff
- Expanded isolation in-place protocols for all residential students
- Very limited face mask use
- Upcoming flu and COVID vaccination clinics
Your use of these less-restrictive COVID suppression protocols will help ensure we prevent COVID disease spread on our St. Louis campuses — and help to protect students, staff and faculty who are immunocompromised or have serious health conditions that could be worsened by a COVID-19 infection.
If you develop COVID symptoms
Remember, COVID symptoms are like the symptoms of cold and flu.
All community members should take the following steps if you experience COVID symptoms:
- Please do not come to work, classes, the lab or the library. Please remain in your home, off-campus apartment or on-campus living space.
- Please wait until you get the okay from Student Health or your health care provider before you return to class or work on our St. Louis campuses.
The federal government plans to offer free rapid COVID-19 tests to the public again. Each household can order four rapid tests at no cost. You can place orders at COVIDtests.gov starting on Sept. 25. Tests are expected to begin shipping on Oct. 2.
Graduate and undergraduate students should contact the Student Health Center (SHC) by email or phone at 314-977-2323. You also can contact the SHC via your MyChart account.
You will be screened by an SHC healthcare professional. A take-home COVID test will be provided, if deemed appropriate for your circumstances.
Alternatively, please contact your primary care provider to report your symptoms.
Faculty and staff should contact their primary care provider about the need to be tested, and report a positive test to their health care provider.
Faculty should report a positive COVID test and their potential isolation-exit date to their department chair. In discussions with the chair, they should consider how their classroom or lab absence will be managed and communicated to their students.
If your isolation period is extended by your primary care provider, please inform your department chair.
Instructors who have minor COVID symptoms may choose to conduct their class via Zoom during their regularly scheduled class period, provided they are feeling well enough to teach and they inform their students in advance. Alternatively, instructors may choose to record their lecture and provide instructions to the class via Canvas on completing assignments for the next class period.
Staff should report a positive test and their potential isolation-exit date to their supervisor, and follow current practices about work projects and deadlines. Staff continue to have access to a generous sick leave bank which may go negative up to 80 hours for COVID-related absences, including time needed to care for a household member with COVID.
If your isolation period is extended by your primary care provider, please inform your supervisor.
Staff with minor COVID symptoms who feel they are well enough, may work remotely until their isolation period ends. But that is your choice. You are under no obligation to work remotely during your isolation period.
Staff who are paid monthly should track their absence to SLU HR via Workday. In Workday, please select Menu/Absence/Request Absence/Dates of Absence/Type/Sick.
In the comments box. Please type “COVID” and include the earliest end date of your isolation period, as identified by your healthcare provider. If your COVID infection continues beyond that date, please report additional sick days in Workday. (Please see our use of the CDC’s current isolation protocol below.)
Staff who are paid bi-weekly should report sick time when submitting their timesheet.
New isolation protocol for students, faculty and staff
The University abides by the current isolation guidance of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC’s isolation protocols are less restrictive than those that we had in place during spring semester.
Depending upon your symptoms and testing, an SHC practitioner, urgent care provider or primary care provider will calculate your isolation period for you.
Here is the CDC guidance that they — and we — will utilize.
- Isolation can end after as few as 6 consecutive days. But you must be fever-free for the last 24 hours, without the use of fever-reducing medication.
- In determining your isolation time period, health care professionals count from Day 0, not Day 1.
- If you are experiencing COVID symptoms, Day 0 is the day your COVID symptoms started.
- If you are asymptomatic, Day 0 is the day a positive test was conducted. It’s not the day you received your positive test result.
- If you have a fever on Day 5, you must continue to isolate until you have been fever-free for 24 hours without the use of a fever-reducing medication.
- After leaving isolation, individuals should mask when around others outside their home through Day 10 of their infection.
- Clinical students and instructors should follow return-to-clinical protocols specific to each clinical site, which may or may not match return-to-campus protocols. Return-to-clinical releases will be managed by the clinical coordinator for the program.
Expanded isolation in-place protocols for all residential students
At the start of our Spring 2023 semester, we piloted having COVID-positive students in select housing spaces isolated-in-place rather than isolated at Hotel Ignacio. That experiment proved very successful with our students.
In April, we expanded isolation-in-place to a broader criteria of on-campus housing spaces.
For fall semester, Student Health Center practitioners and staff are directing all residential students who test positive for COVID to remain in their living spaces and isolate in-place. Student Health providers also are checking in on our isolating students periodically to be sure isolation is going as best as possible.
Of course, if your hometown is a drivable distance, you can always isolate in the comfort of your home.
How do residential students isolate-in-place?
The direction for a COVID-positive residential student to isolate in place will be communicated by phone or email by a health care practitioner in the Student Health Center.
Our off-campus students who have tested positive for COVID have been isolating in place since the start of the pandemic.
Once informed, a student will remain in or return to their living space and stay there for the isolation period, typically for about 6 consecutive days.
Isolating students are deemed excused absences from classes, labs and work, and are encouraged to work with their faculty members on the best way to make up assignments and lab work. Faculty may confirm the excused absences of their students by contacting the Dean of Students office.
We encourage roommates and suitemates to have a conversation about how they will want to manage isolation-in-place in their shared living space now — before you are taken by surprise.
Some options to consider:
- Staying together in the same living space while wearing face masks in shared spaces.
- The healthy room-or suitemate could stay with a friend during the COVID-positive student’s isolation period.
- The COVID-positive roommate or suitemate could isolate off campus.
In your living space, you do not need to wear your face mask unless you and your roommate(s) agree that you must do so.
We encourage the COVID-positive student to eat in their own bedroom, if able, and to wash their hands frequently throughout their isolation period.
Please, no visitors are allowed in your living space. While your friends and family are welcome to drop off items you may need to the lobby of the building, visitors are not allowed in your residence hall or in your room. This is to protect their health and safety.
If you are a student who is isolating-in-place, you must:
- Stay in your room in your residence hall, or on- or off-campus apartment.
- Alert your faculty members that you have COVID and cannot attend classes or labs. Seek their guidance as to how you can keep current with your classes and labs.
- Alert your campus job supervisor that you have COVID and cannot work on campus.
- Alert your coach that you are COVID positive and cannot travel, come to practice or attend a game.
- Remain in your room except to:
- Visit the Student Health Center — while wearing a face mask.
- Quickly pick up a to-go meal from our food service facilities or restaurant — while wearing a face mask.
- Have some Student Health Center-approved outdoor time — while wearing a face mask.
These are the only approved reasons for you to leave your living space during isolation, after which, you must promptly return to your on-campus room or apartment.
Very limited face mask use
After leaving isolation, per the current CDC guidance, students, staff and faculty are required to wear a face mask in our on-campus buildings — when around others outside their home or living space — through Day 10.
We strongly encourage community members to wear a face mask on campus when they are feeling sick. Voluntary face mask use helped reduce our incidence of on-campus flu infections last year.
Interestingly, in recent days, we are observing more and more students, staff and faculty wearing face masks on our St. Louis campuses. They may be counting down to Day 10 of their infection. They may have a cold. Or the flu. Or they just don’t want to bring germs home with them to an immunocompromised loved one. Whatever the reason, we are grateful.
Flu and COVID Vaccination Clinics
Flu shots will once again be available to all students, faculty and staff on our three St. Louis campuses through November. The best protection against influenza is the flu vaccine, and the University strongly recommends that everyone who is medically able should obtain a flu vaccine this semester.
The U.S. Food & Drug Administration recently approved new COVID-19 vaccinations, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended to which child and adult populations the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech doses should be administered.
We hope to provide these newly formulated COVID vaccinations on our campuses this semester, just as we have done since the first doses were made available by emergency authorization in early 2021.
We will update you as soon as we know more about the timing and availability of COVID vaccines on campus.
However, if you are immunocompromised, or have serious health issues that could be made worse by a COVID infection, or if someone in your household could be put at serious risk by a COVID infection, please consider obtaining a new COVID vaccination as soon as they become available at local clinics.
Thank you for taking action to protect your health and the health of our community.