Hello colleagues and friends,
Welcome to a new academic year at KAUST. Thank you for everything you have done to keep KAUST safe. Our response to COVID-19 thus far has been comprehensive and highly successful thanks to all of your efforts.
I can report that a lot has changed for the better related to COVID-19 since our transition to Tier 1B: the University’s phased re-opening, in May of 2021.
Nationally, cases have dropped from over 1,000 per day in May to under 200 per day in September. Saudi Arabia has now fully vaccinated with all doses around 45% of the population and expects to reach 70% in October.
At KAUST, our daily cases remain low. Our vaccination rates have quickly progressed to 91% of our KAUST community over the age of 12 years and 100% of our service providers fully vaccinated.
All service providers and all visitors must now be fully vaccinated to be in KAUST, and we are working to get the remaining few in KAUST fully vaccinated very soon. Only those under the age of 12 will remain unvaccinated. New employees, students and dependents arriving from other countries where they couldn’t be vaccinated will go through institutional quarantine and then be fully vaccinated as soon as possible.
Progressing to Tier 1A
Effective, September 6, 2021, the community is ready to move to Tier 1A in our phased approach to normal conditions.
Click here for a full explanation of the phased approach.
In Tier 1A, there will be no changes to where and when face coverings are required; physical distancing requirements will drop to 1 meter; some additional spaces will move back to 100% occupancy; private gathering limits will increase slightly; and department-organized events will transition back to department monitoring.
TKS and Daycare, which have large populations of community members predominantly under the age of 12 will remain with their current controls and mitigations. While many of you won’t notice a difference in the workplace or graduate classroom, other areas will have a new sense of normalcy.
Review the Keeping KAUST Safe guidelines for more details.
Tier 1A is one phase away from normal conditions. During this Tier 1A period, it is important that those few remaining community members become fully vaccinated and we remain vigilant.
While the prevalence of COVID-19 is much lower and vaccinations are high, we are still susceptible, especially with Delta and other potential variants. We will monitor how these changes have impacted the community in the coming weeks and hopefully transition to a new normal as soon as possible.
I want to stress that your actions are still critical during this time. Please continue to keep KAUST, and our community, safe by following precautions, staying up-to-date with the latest information, and reporting issues to Health, Safety & Environment.
If we all pull together we can hope to close out this chapter in our history safely, successfully, and perhaps, a bit stronger as a community.
Thank you,
Tony F. Chan
KAUST President
Chair, KC3
