Students at Eastern Oregon University, La Grande, follow physical distancing guidelines Sept. 23 while waiting to check in on move-in day.

LA GRANDE — Officials at Eastern Oregon University are keeping their options open about instituting COVID-19 booster shot requirements amid a sharp national spike in coronavirus cases driven by the highly transmissible omicron variant.

Tim Seydel, EOU’s vice president for university advancement, said the university in La Grande is not yet requiring boosters but has been having conversations about a requirement, especially in light of the University of Oregon’s Twitter announcement Dec. 20 that it would require booster shots as omicron reached Oregon, saying students, faculty and staff should get the extra dose “as soon as they are eligible.”

“Our focus probably right now is continuing to watch what’s happening, monitoring the situation, and recommendations from health officials statewide and of course, locally,” Seydel said. “There’s no requirement right now for students or employees to have a booster as we start with our winter term. We’re going to continue to monitor to see how the situation evolves.”

Seydel said with so many moving parts and differing projections, Eastern Oregon officials continue to meet on a weekly basis with the Center for Human Development to stay abreast of COVID-19’s impact locally.

The school instituted a vaccination mandate in October that requires all of EOU’s on-campus staff and students to be fully vaccinated for COVID-19 or to have an approved religious, philosophical or medical exemption. Seydel said on-campus vaccination rates for employees and students is 75-80%. The school has spent the holiday break reminding students and staff to be safe if they were traveling.

“When we start up again, all unvaccinated students, if they can’t, don’t have proof, then they’ll get tested,” he said. “And then we’ll continue monitoring them and our employees. If they’re vaccinated we already have their proof. And then if they’re unvaccinated, then we’d have them continue to do their weekly or daily health checks.”

As the omicron surge unfolds nationwide, Seydel said Eastern Oregon does not anticipate a change in on-campus activities.

“Eastern put protocols in place and worked to have students in class on campus, even at limited capacity,” he said. “That really worked well for our students, and we want to keep doing that.”

Seydel said the school has been successful in keeping case counts low this fall, an indication that EOU’s protocol is working and that students making sure they’re monitoring themselves.

“If they’re not feeling good, they’re getting over to our Student Health Center and getting tested,” he said.

Seydel said Eastern Oregon will continue to hold vaccine clinics during the winter term to further encourage the extra shot. During two recent clinics held on campus, approximately 80 booster shots were given, according to Seydel.

“We’ve had four clinics already, and we’re planning to hold another one in January. And at the last one, we had just a lot of booster shots, which again is another really good indicator,” he said. “We had a lot of students and employees going in to get their booster.”