Students are required to be fully up-to-date on their COVID-19 vaccines (including the COVID-19 booster shot), and must submit documentation of vaccination to their Wellness Portal.
Online students who do not plan to come to campus are not required to report their vaccine status and there will be no consequence for not reporting it.
Consistent with the recently revised Philadelphia Department of Public Health (PDPH) guidance, faculty, staff, and postdocs are required to receive the primary series of the COVID-19 vaccine (two doses of mRNA vaccine or one dose of Johnson & Johnson), and are strongly encouraged to be boosted. Faculty, staff, and postdocs should upload their vaccine information into Workday. Step-by-step instructions for uploading vaccine information into Workday can be found here: Self Service: Enter Vaccination Information.
Unless you are granted an exemption, failure to report full vaccination will result in disciplinary action, up to and including termination.
Undergraduate, graduate and professional students may request an exemption from the University of Pennsylvania COVID-19 vaccination mandate.
Information can be found on the Wellness at Penn website.
Faculty, staff, and postdocs can request an exemption from the University of Pennsylvania COVID-19 vaccination mandate by downloading, reading, completing, and submitting the following forms, as appropriate:
An individual is considered and "up-to-date" once they have received all recommended booster shots based on their age and personal health history. Boosters include COVID vaccines received following the completion of a primary series.
The updated (bivalent) booster vaccinations are called “bivalent” because they protect against both the original virus that causes COVID-19 and the Omicron variant BA.4 and BA.5. The CDC recommends that people ages 5 years and older receive one updated (bivalent) booster if it has been at least 2 months since their last COVID-19 vaccine dose, whether that was:
People who have gotten more than one original (monovalent) booster are also recommended to get an updated (bivalent) booster.
Visit the CDC COVID-19 Booster Info page for more information.
Penn will accept those COVID-19 vaccines that have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Four COVID-19 vaccines have been approved for use. Two are fully approved and two are approved for Emergency Use (EUA). As of July 27, 2022 that list includes:
Penn will accept those vaccines that have been “pre-qualified” or authorized for “Emergency Use Listing” (EUL) by the World Health Organization (WHO) evaluation process. As of July 27, 2022, that list includes:
Visit the Penn Cares Videos webpage to hear from Penn Community members about why they chose to get vaccinated.
Also, learn about the COVID-19 vaccine, some common reasons for hesitancy surrounding it, side effects, efficacy, and more.
Watch the Videos
