Provost Noel Wilkin said on Monday that “vaccinating our community is the fastest path back to normal” as he encouraged students to get the COVID-19 vaccine, but the university will not require the UM community to schedule appointments for vaccines.

“We know that the path to normal is through vaccination,” Wilkin said. “So if the vaccine is not gotten by the number of people who need to get it — in order for us to have comfort and relax the protocols — we’ll just continue to modify operations with the protocols.” 

Wilkin was accompanied at an information panel by Dr. Lauren Bloodworth, a clinical associate professor of pharmacy practice; Alex Langhart, the director of University Health Centers; and Dr. Hubert Spears, a staff physician at the Employee Health Center, to discuss the university’s vaccine rollout plan. 

Wilkin clarified that the university currently does not have vaccines on campus for distribution, but administrators are ready to receive them and have the plans in place to administer them once they arrive. 

“Once vaccines became available to the public, our goal has been to be able to administer vaccines within hours of them arriving on campus,” Wilkin said. “Our task force administration team has ensured that we will be able to meet that goal.” 

Langhart said that the university is registered as a distribution site and has stayed in contact with the Mississippi State Department of Health. 

“Unfortunately, this is the most frustrating part. It’s the waiting game,” Langhart said. “But, I think it’s so important for us to be ready at a moment’s notice that when we’re given a call, we can roll it out, and get it done.”

Wilkin said that the COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution and Administration Task Force –– comprised of students, faculty and staff –– is going to honor the MSDH categories in terms of who to prioritize if the university gets a limited supply of vaccines. According to the MSDH, people who work on a college campus, such as community assistants, graduate students, faculty and staff, are eligible to get the vaccine first. 

Since the university has not yet received any vaccines, there is no way to tell whether it will  receive the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine. However, according to some pharmacy students who attended the hour-long university training to administer the vaccine, it would be ideal for the university to receive doses of both the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines to provide second doses to community members who have received a first dose from elsewhere.

“We’ll take whatever they give us,” Langhart said. “We have the capacity and capability to handle both the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines.”

Bloodworth, who is leading the effort to administer the COVID-19 vaccine on campus, said the university has set up a clinic in the Tad Smith Coliseum to administer about 450-500 vaccines per day after the university receives the vaccine.  

Whether the MSDH will ask UM to help vaccinate the Oxford community is also undecided. Until that decision is made, the vaccinations will solely focus on the campus population. 

“If (vaccinating the Oxford community is possible) because of the resources that we have here for us to be able to serve a large community, we are definitely going to do that,” Langhart said.

Spears, who has worked in the medical field for over 40 years, also said that the COVID-19 vaccine is the best and the safest vaccine he has ever seen. 

Wilkin added that the university has plans to communicate with the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where the head of vaccination distribution has been responsible for the distribution of over 29,000 doses. This will be a collaborative effort to reassure the strategies they already have in place and learn about UAB’s practices as well.

“When we first got started, and we learned that our university had a vaccine, I did make contact with colleagues (at UAB), and we bounced ideas and strategies off of one another,” Bloodworth said.

Wilkin said that it is too soon to predict what the threshold for vaccinated campus community members might be, and when the university will be able to start relaxing safety protocols on campus. 

“What I’m confident of is that the faster we get a high percentage of our community vaccinated, the more likely and the faster we will be able to relax protocols,” Wilkin said.

Spears said that COVID-19 is more likely to mutate if people refuse to take the vaccine and continue not to wear masks or social distance.

“I think we should challenge people,” Spears said. “Don’t do it just for yourself, do it for your family, friends, your country and even the world because it’s that important.”