If you are vaccinated and test positive for COVID, you will follow the CDC guidelines for isolation of any positive case of COVID. This includes a full, 10-day period of isolation from the day your test was taken. As we have in the past and in accordance with recommendations from our health partners, we will use the student’s test date as day zero for our starting point for the isolation period. We plan to continue this through the fall given the highly transmissible delta variant.

No, this is protected information per federal regulations.

We continue to monitor the updates related to the guidelines for COVID-19 booster shots. We look forward to sharing more information about whether they will be required and whether Loyola will offer a booster vaccination clinic. At this time, COVID-19 booster shots while approved by the CDC for certain groups are not required in order to attend Loyola.

Yes, all students will track their symptoms each morning. The symptom tracker is located on the Loyola Student Health Portal.

You will be contacted by Loyola’s Contact Tracing team only if you are identified as a close contact. Please consider saving their phone number in your phone so you know if you should pick up with call. Loyola Contact Tracing phone number: 410-618-9550

Information shared with the contact tracer will remain confidential, and a student will not be referred to the conduct process for information shared with the contact tracer. However, the University reserves the right to investigate and adjudicate information and behaviors that are observed or learned outside the contact tracing process. For example, if you speak with a contact tracer and tell them you were with a non-student guest on campus, the contact tracer will not share that information with the Office of Student Conduct. However, if a report is received from a Loyola community member, such as a fellow student, with information about the incident you disclosed to the contact tracer, that behavior reported to the University by the fellow student and investigated by the University will be adjudicated through the student conduct process.

Close contact is defined as someone who was within 6 feet for a total of 15 minutes or more within two days prior to illness onset, regardless of whether the contact was wearing a mask.

If you are vaccinated and have had close contact with a positive case of COVID, contact your site supervisor and University supervisor immediately to report the exposure. Follow externship/practicum site guidance on continuing in-person activities. You should also alert Student Health Services to your exposure by completing the daily symptom tracker and follow their guidance for COVID testing.   

If you have an approved vaccine exemption and have been exposed to COVID, you should notify SHS through the daily symptom checker and then quarantine at home. SHS will follow up with guidance regarding quarantine and testing requirements. You should contact your site supervisor and University supervisor immediately to report the exposure. 

Regardless of your vaccination status, do not report to the site if you have any symptoms of COVID-19 or you have had a positive COVID test and have not been cleared by Student Health Services (SHS) or your primary care physician to return to in-person activities.

If you are fully vaccinated and exposed to COVID-19, you can still continue to go to class and participate in other in-person activities as long as you do not have any symptoms of COVID, but you must be masked (indoors and outdoors), monitor yourself closely for symptoms, and be tested for COVID 5-7 days after exposure. Report the exposure to Student Health Services through the daily symptom tracker and follow their guidance for testing and symptom monitoring.    

This is a best practice for vaccinated individuals, following the guidance of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and Loyola’s policy, created under the guidance of our medical consultants. The guidance is different for students who are unvaccinated and have an authorized exemption. Regardless of your vaccination status, you should follow the direction given to you by Student Health Services or the medical professionals who are assisting them.

Despite the incidence of breakthrough infection, the CDC’s guidance has remained the same for this.

All residential students should arrive on campus with a “go bag” packed and ready in case they test positive and need to return home or move to Loyola isolation space. Students should review the checklist of items to pack and a list of items that will be provided in Loyola isolation space.

If you have an approved exemption from being vaccinated, you must participate in mandatory weekly testing.

The Rapid Response Team and Policy Group is continuing to monitor the path of the delta variant. Beginning on Monday, Sept. 13, we will be including a small percentage of faculty, staff, administrators, and graduate and undergraduate students who have been vaccinated in the weekly surveillance testing pool. Students chosen for this testing will be notified by email from covidtesting@loyola.edu. As the semester moves forward, we will adjust this as recommended by our medical experts.

As a part of the first page of the waiver forms that were signed by all who have been approved for a medical or religious exemption, conditions indicated that we will attempt to bill your insurance company directly from the lab handling the testing. In some rare instances, this is not fully covered by insurance. If Loyola is notified by the lab that your insurance company did not approve the claim, we will bill you our out-of-pocket costs for the test which is $65/test this upcoming semester.

Testing for vaccinated individuals included in surveillance testing will be covered by Loyola IF your insurance company denies the claim. All symptomatic testing for COVID will be done through Student Health Services and should be covered through insurance baring any deductibles you may be responsible for each year.

It is expected that any students involved in in-person learning will report any positive COVID-19 test to Student Health and Education Services within two hours. To report your positive test result, contact Student Health Services at 410-617-5055 during business hours and speak with one of the clinical staff there. If you receive your positive result after hours or on the weekend, we ask that you email Student Health Services at covidtesting@loyola.edu with the subject line “POSITIVE TEST” and complete your symptom tracker, and someone will reach out to you as soon as possible. If this were to occur overnight, please mask and isolate to the best of your ability and someone will be in touch with you in the morning.

Students will be able to visit other residence halls. We expect that when students are indoors and not in their residence hall rooms, they will wear masks regardless of vaccination status. However, due to the risk of the delta variant, and because we are unable to track the vaccination and COVID-19 status of non-students, non-student guests are prohibited from the residence halls to begin the semester. Loyola will reexamine this policy as the semester continues.

Yes, but please be sensible and consider exposure to COVID-19 while traveling. We would not recommend cruises at this time. See these domestic travel guidelines and these international travel guidelines set by the CDC.

Given the risk associated with exposure to COVID-19, we strongly encourage students to contact the Office of Student Conduct to seek clarity on any policies before engaging in behavior that may violate them. Please email studentconduct@loyola.edu, and someone will respond to your question promptly.

We need the entire community to abide by COVID-19 policies and hold each other accountable when they are not. We believe there are different types of violations- routine and severe. If the violation involves routine interactions or minor concerns, we ask that you remind the person violating the policy of our expectations and encourage them to comply. Do so with grace and keep in mind how you would like to be reminded. Examples of routine interactions include not wearing a face covering properly, not following directional signage, not keeping the appropriate physical distance, etc. If you witness someone violating COVID-19 policies of a severe nature, we encourage you to report them through the Office of Student Conduct website. Examples of violations that are severe in nature include violations of the guest policy, and breaking isolation and quarantine.

We want to encourage all community members to work together to help ensure compliance for all of our COVID-related guidelines. However, if a student is found responsible for a violation, the sanctions will consider a number of factors- the student's conduct history, the seriousness of the behavior, the risk of harm to the community. More serious behaviors will have more serious sanctions, up to suspension or expulsion. For example, a minor violation may be a student who is repeatedly asked to wear a face covering and refuses. This student would likely receive disciplinary probation for at least one semester and an educational assignment to help them understand the importance of face coverings in keeping the community safe. An example of a more serious violation would be a student who is in isolation and breaks isolation protocol, such as leaving their isolation space to visit a friend or go to the library. In this situation a likely sanction for that student would be suspension from the residence halls or university.

University policy requires everyone to wear masks indoors except when you are in your personal living space. For more detailed information about your residence hall, see below:

Thea Bowman Hall

Thea Bowman Hall offers traditional style double-rooms connected by a bathroom. You are not required to wear a mask while in your assigned residence hall room or your connected bathroom. You are required to wear a mask every time you leave your assigned room, which includes in a friend’s room, common area lounges or study spaces, walking the hallways, riding the elevator or taking the stairs, and visiting Bowman Express.

Butler, Hammerman, or Hopkins

Butler, Hammerman, and Hopkins Court are residence halls that have double rooms, and residents use a shared bathroom. You are not required to wear a mask while in your assigned residence hall room. You are required to wear a mask every time you leave your assigned room, which includes in a friend’s room , common area lounges or study spaces, walking the hallways, riding the elevator or taking the stairs. When you are in the shared bathroom, you must wear a mask when you are not engaging in an activity where wearing a mask is not practical. For example, if you go to the bathroom to brush your teeth, wear the mask to the bathroom, remove it to brush your teeth, and wear the mask once you are done and are returning to your room.

Avila, Bellarmine, Campion, Claver, Dorothy Day, Newman, Lange, Seton, and Southwell

These halls have apartments or suites containing bedrooms, bathrooms, a kitchen, a common space and/or a dining room. You are not required to wear a mask while in your assigned apartment or suite. For example, if you are assigned to live in Campion 411, you do not need to wear a mask while you are in Campion 411. However, you are required to wear a mask every time you are not in your assigned apartment or suite, which includes in a friend’s room, common area lounges or study spaces, walking the hallways, riding the elevator or taking the stairs.

McAuley and Rahner

McAuley and Rahner are halls that have apartments- containing bedrooms, bathrooms, a kitchen, a common space and/or a dining room- with doors that can be accessed from outside. You are not required to wear a mask while in your assigned apartment. You are required to wear a mask every time you are not in your assigned apartment, which includes in a friend’s room or when you leave your apartment to go outside.

The Social

The Social is an apartment complex the University has partnered with to offer additional on campus housing. Although they are not contiguous to campus, face covering policies also apply to students living there. The apartments contain bedrooms, bathrooms, a kitchen, a common space and/or a dining room. You are not required to wear a mask while in your assigned apartment. You are required to wear a face covering every time you are not in your assigned apartment, which includes in a friend’s room, common area lounges or study spaces, walking the hallways, riding the elevator or taking the stairs. You must also comply with policies specific to The Social, which can be accessed by contacting on site management.

If you are in quarantine or isolation, you should communicate with your professors about how to best keep up with your coursework. You can expect professors to keep their Moodle sites, including assignments and required course materials, up to date; to respond to email queries; and to arrange to hold office hours virtually, as appropriate and feasible. If a significant number of students in a class are in quarantine and isolation, faculty may move the class online, with the approval of their academic dean.

No. As long as the mask mandate is in effect, no one in a classroom, including the professor, can remove their mask for any reason. There should be no eating or drinking in classrooms for the duration of the indoor mask mandate.

Internship coordinators and/or program directors for both undergraduate and graduate programs have reviewed the measures being taken to protect the health and safety of our students at practicum and internship sites. However, given the uncertainly related to the delta variant of the virus, all students completing any in-person field experience, practicum, or internships will be asked to sign a waiver acknowledging that they are voluntarily choosing to participate in such activities and that they assume the risks of participation and release Loyola University Maryland from liability. In addition, some sites may require proof of vaccination.