LSU says 81 percent of students have had at least one shot of the COVID-19 vaccine

Eighty-one percent of LSU students have gotten at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, President William Tate announced Wednesday. Meanwhile, 72 percent of the university’s faculty and staff are fully vaccinated, an LSU spokesperson said.

“If you had asked me two months ago whether this was imaginable, I would have said no,” Tate said in the announcement.

Unvaccinated LSU students are required to undergo monthly COVID-19 testing, he said.

Tate was also invited to the White House to discuss LSU’s COVID-19 mitigation strategies with President Joe Biden and his COVID-19 response team Wednesday. Tate was the only higher education representative invited to the event, according to an LSU press release.

“It is an honor to present our successful COVID mitigation strategies to President Biden and the COVID Response Team, and we are proud that our multi-tiered approach to protecting our students, faculty and staff has been recognized at such an incredibly high level,” Tate said in the release. 

“Our strategies have worked, with more than 82 percent of our student body currently vaccinated, a monthly testing protocol that monitors the presence of the virus on our campus, wastewater testing that allows us to intervene before an outbreak occurs, and a vaccine/testing mandate at Tiger Stadium to keep our fans safe, too,” he said. “We are grateful for the privilege of celebrating how far we have come and sharing the game plan with others who might be able to benefit from the knowledge.”