Fully in-person instruction and activities expected in fall 2022

April 13, 2022

Dear Johns Hopkins Community: 

We are pleased to tell you that we are planning for fully in-person instruction and student activities in the fall. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we have found that certain technological innovations serve to improve pedagogy and student access and success, and our schools have been discussing ways to ensure that those efforts can continue. But given the near universal rates of vaccination on campus, the lessons we and our peers have learned, and the continued advice of our own public health and medical experts, we believe that our campus activities will not be meaningfully altered because of COVID. Planning for summer academic activities and for future employee work modalities is also underway—details will be communicated as they are finalized.    

We expect that COVID will still be circulating in the community this summer and fall. There will continue to be times when the prevalence of COVID is heightened as the pandemic progresses towards a more endemic level, similar to seasonal influenza, and some level of precautions will remain necessary.  

Although neither vaccination nor boosters entirely prevent infection, they have demonstrated continued protection against severe disease and have contributed to cases on campus being generally mild. Hence, we plan to continue requiring vaccinations and boosters, as well as flu shots, for students in the fall.

We also anticipate being able to rely on additional control measures, such as masking and testing, that have been in effect this spring. As warranted, there may be times when we require parts of our community to get tested or use face coverings in certain circumstances. For residential students, we will move to having students isolate in place but will retain some limited capacity for off-campus isolation housing, which we think may be needed at the beginning of the fall term and after Thanksgiving break.

For the fall, we will continue to have Johns Hopkins COVID Call Center (JHCCC) expertise available to help answer questions, provide referrals for testing and care, and help identify where there may be locations or populations of concern.

We appreciate all your efforts since the beginning of the pandemic to keep our community safe and to continue to pursue our university’s research, education, and community service missions. We look ahead with optimism for the 2022–23 academic year and will continue to keep you informed about JHU’s plans in the coming months.

Sincerely,

Stephen Gange
Professor and Executive Vice Provost for Academic Affairs

Kevin Shollenberger
Vice Provost for Student Health and Well-Being

Rachelle Hernandez
Vice Provost for Student Affairs

Pierre Joanis
Vice President for Human Resources

Jon Links
Professor, Vice Provost, and Chief Risk Officer