Charlotte Yates: “So, hello, everybody. I’m not sure if you heard those former comments, so I’ll just say hello, welcome to the town hall. I’m Charlotte Yates, the President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Guelph, and welcome to the town hall. I do believe that Dr. Tenenbaum has joined us. Gwen? Kim? Can you confirm?”

Kim McCaughan: “Yes, I’m just looking to see if he’s online now.”

Charlotte Yates: “Good. Okay. So as you all know, today we’re going to be discussing plans for the Fall. So, to start us off, I’d like to turn it over to Aaron Miller who will be emceeing the event.”

Aaron Miller: “Thank you so much, President Yates. I really appreciate it. So I just wanted to take the opportunity to welcome everybody to the town hall. My name is Aaron Miller. I’m the Director of Marketing and Digital Engagement here at the University of Guelph and I’ll be acting as a MC or moderator for today’s event.

I think the digital engagement section of my title is really relevant for today’s conversation because we’re anticipating there will be a lot of questions, a lot of people who want to have a voice heard, so we’re really working hard to ensure that everybody has that opportunity.

We’re going to do that in three key ways today. We’re going to answer all questions live, here today, through questions that were either pre-submitted or in the chat. We’ll also be answering questions on the chat, so if somebody has a question that could be easily answered by some of our team working behind the scenes, they’ll be answering those questions inside the chat in real time, as well. And then if some of the questions we don’t get a chance to answer, we’re going to post the answers to all of those on our COVID website, as well.

So, we’re really trying to make a really concerted effort to ensure that we’re answering all questions, and everybody certainly feels heard from any kind of issues or questions that they do have today.

And I also just wanted to make a quick hat tip as well to the team who’s working behind the scenes on this. We’ve got a lot of people who are going through all the questions just to make sure that we get all of them answered. So, as you can imagine, I see 902 people already here today, there’s probably going to be a lot of them that are going to come up today.

Now, why are we doing a town hall? It really comes down to providing you with an overview of what the latest plans are for the university. And also to, as I mentioned previously, to answer those questions that you have that might be hanging around in your head.

As I think about it, we’re weeks away from students coming on campus and there’s always a lot of questions, not only here at the University of Guelph, but all across Ontario and across Canada, so it certainly makes sense that people would have some questions. So that’s why we’re here doing this today.

And really what it’s all about is we have a goal to ensure that we’re going to be able to create really safe and enriching on campus experience for everyone, for students, for staff, and for faculty. And that’s really the goal for all of this.

Now in terms of some of the engagement that we’re going to be doing today, we did receive some pre-submitted questions and we’re going to have some, we’re going to probably start with first, and we certainly appreciate those who had the time to do that. You’re going to see that sometimes the questions might be asked in themes because a lot of the questions were very similar about specific topics. So we’re going to ensure that we answer the questions. It may not be exactly how you worded it because there were probably others who had a similar question, as well.

But for those of you who didn’t have an opportunity to submit a question previously, like I mentioned before, the chat function will be open, so you can ask your questions in there. And then again, time permitting, we can try to answer all the ones pre-submitted and live.

Before we totally get started on everything and get into some remarks and into some engagement from our audience, I just wanted to thank our whole executive team. So obviously, President Yates, Dr. Cate Dewey, Dr. Malcolm Campbell, Daniel Atlin, Sharmilla Rasheed, as well as Dr. Matthew Tenenbaum from the Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health, for being here today to help answer all these questions.

And then I want to ensure that we have a lot of time for the questions because I know that’s going to be the main part of today’s event, but I did want to put it back to President Charlotte Yates so she can give a few words to open up the event.

Charlotte Yates: “Thanks very much, Aaron, and let me start by saying welcome, everybody. It is wonderful to connect with you all virtually this afternoon. And I do want to remind us that as we gather virtually, I encourage us all to take a moment to reflect on the lands in which we all reside, and those that connect us as part [00:05:00] of the University of Guelph.

Guelph resides within the lands of the Dish With One Spoon Wampum, and on the treaty lands and territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit. We recognize the diverse communities of First Nations, Inuit, and Metis peoples who call these lands home today.

With this land acknowledgement and the others that we do at all the functions at the university, we are acknowledging our relationship [00:05:30] to the land, to communities, and our actions, and we also reaffirm the University of Guelph’s commitment to decolonization, anti-racism, and reconciliation with indigenous peoples and lands. Let me turn with a few brief remarks on the Fall term, and then I know that Aaron will turn it over to Dr. Tenenbaum.

So I know, we all know, we’re weeks away from the beginning of the new academic year, and I excited to see people. I already started, yesterday I saw a few more people, a few more former friends, colleagues, and of course, it’s exciting to think about activities and experiences resuming on campus.

But I also know a lot of us feel anxiety. There’s a lot of concerns and uncertainties about resuming more on campus experiences in the Fall. I want to assure you that the health and safety of the university community continues and has always been a guide to our decisions. So as we prepare for the Fall, we’ve been working diligently to ensure the campus facilities, as well as our practices meet all public health guidelines.

All of you will have received a letter this morning and if you have not seen it yet, you’ll be able to see it on our website. As part of these practices, the University of Guelph announced [00:07:00] this morning that the university will be mandating vaccines for students, faculty, and staff, in order to access our Guelph campuses, Ridgetown campus and the indoors at all U of G managed field stations.

This mandate will be in place for the balance of the 2021-22 academic year. This decision was made by the university’s executive team with strong support from Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph, and Chatham-Kent Public Health. We know that being fully vaccinated significantly reduces the risk of most serious outcomes of COVID-19, and to date, this has also been true for the variants of concern. I’m sure Dr. Tenenbaum will be able to share more information of this when I turn it over to him.

Vaccines are now readily available across Ontario, and in making our plans we’ve ensured that the university community members will continue to have access to vaccinations [00:08:00] through student health services, popup clinics, and of course the provincial portal.

We are in all of our measures, mitigating risks to our campus community, but as you all know, we cannot completely remove all risk. I am continuing to advocate and work closely with the Council of Ontario Universities, which is lobbying government for action and in particular, we’ve been lobbying government [00:08:30] to introduce a vaccine passport and to support us in our expectation for mandatory vaccines.

So far, we’ve been unable to get the government to act and for that reason, it has come up to individual institutions to a take action on their own. It’s important to note that individuals who cannot vaccinated based on medical or other grounds recognize with the Ontario Human Rights Code, can request an accommodation.

As you can imagine, operationalizing [00:09:00] this vaccine mandate at the university will require widespread institutional consultation and collaboration. We will be engaging various groups across the university including Senate and the Board of Governors as we develop details of this plan.

There will be a special Senate meeting called late in August for consultation, and we will be providing notice to members shortly. We don’t have all the answers today, but we are working hard to get those answers, but also your questions today will be important in shaping what issues we need to address in order to continue to make our campus safe. We will keep track of all the questions posed so that they can continue to shape details of the plan.

And of course, we welcome questions for today’s town hall on any topic related to our return to campuses, not just the vaccine mandate. We will continue to keep you informed regularly [00:10:00] as new information becomes available. I want to thank all of those who have provided guidance on this decision and all of our decisions on pandemic related issues, for your work in keeping our community healthy.

I do want to end my remarks with a note of gratitude. Last week we had a celebration to celebrate the community COVID-19 vaccination clinic that we hosted at the University Center, and that closed last week because of the significant progress made in vaccination rates across Guelph, and of course the availability of vaccines other than in large vaccination centers.

Vaccinations will continue to be offered throughout the community and on our own campus through Student Health Services, as well as popup clinics. I am proud to say that since the opening in March, the University of Guelph Clinic administered more than 83,000 vaccinations. We had dedicated medical staff, we had dedicated staff who made sure that the campus clinic ran smoothly and supported the health and welfare of our community.

I want to say a very big thank you to the Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health, the Guelph Family Health team, and our own U of G staff and hundreds of volunteers for making this clinic such a success. Now I’ll turn it over to you, Aaron, to introduce Dr. Tenenbaum.

Aaron Miller: “Thank you, President Yates. It is now my pleasure to introduce Dr. Matthew Tenebaum, Associate Medical Officer of Health for Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health. And Dr. Tenenbaum has been working with the health unit as a physician consultant since September of 2018, and was appointed Associate Medical Officer of Health in January, 2019. Through his role, he works to ensure public health services in the region are impactful and responsive to the local needs.

Dr. Tenenbaum, we are very, very grateful for you ongoing support of the University of Guelph. We thank you for joining us this afternoon, so welcome to our town hall.”

Dr. Matthew Tenenbaum: “Thank you very much for having me, and thank you for everyone who is on the call with us today. Really appreciate the chance to talk about where we are as a community, what we might be able to expect this Fall, and what we’re thinking about as we enter this next phase of the COVID-19 pandemic.

And I want to thank the university for hosting this town hall, to provide a forum to be able to have those conversations, and to have as much reach as possible, because we know there are questions out there. We want to make sure to give everyone the best possible information to understand what’s going on, to understand the level of risk that exists, and what they can do to protect themselves, and the people they care about.

I’m not going to take very long, but I did want to speak for a few minutes, and I’m going to see if I can share a couple of slides, just to help guide the conversation a little bit. But I’ll begin by talking a little bit about where we are in our COVID-19 response, overall, and within WDG, specifically.

[Slide entitled COVID-19 – Where are we in the pandemic? with graph showing 7 day moving rate (per 100,000) by reported date for WDG from April 2020 to July 2021]

So essentially where we are is we’ve gone through this pandemic for a year and a half now. Of course everyone remembers our first wave in the Spring of 2020, then we had a quiet Summer, and of course a very busy Fall heading into Winter with our second wave. And then it’s back again in our third wave this past Spring when the alpha variant of concern became our dominant COVID-19 variant, and that drove a significant increase in cases, hospitalizations, and bad outcomes from COVID-19, given how easily that one spreads and how severely it can impact people.

We know that the COVID-19 pandemic isn’t over yet. The numbers have come down since that third wave, and overall within our community, things have been quieter with fewer cases, fewer hospitalizations, lesser impacts compared to where we were. But we’ve also learned over the course of the past year and a half that COVID-19 is a challenging adversary and it is certainly not done dealing with us yet.

We know there is a good likelihood of cases increasing again in the Fall. We have already begun to see provincially some increases in our case numbers, as we enter the coming season. We know people are going to be spending more time indoors and as with other respiratory viruses, we do expect there to be some increases.

Now, I’ll speak a little bit later about the impact of vaccines, but those are of course, a key tool we have in our tool belt, which modify the risk that exists in our community, and they represent a key action all of us can take, and all of us can recommend to others around us to take, to reduce the risk that we face as a community, going forward.

[Slide entitled COVID-19 – Where are we in the pandemic? with key indicators of confirmed cases, total tests, effective reproductive number and test positivity]

On our website, WDGpublichealth.ca, we maintain a dashboard where we have our key indicators that you can understand the risk that exists on any given day, and we do update it every weekday with indicators like our confirmed case trends, our estimates of our reproductive number, and our positivity from our testing that happens. All of those trends are really worth keeping an eye on as we enter the Fall to understand [00:15:00] the risk that we face. And certainly they and other indicators are ones that we’re going to be watching very carefully as we give our best advice in response to changing circumstances.

Right now, of course, things are much lower, representing the lesser impact that COVID-19 has had since the down slope of that third wave. But as I mentioned, we are paying very close attention because we are seeing provincially, some increases in trends, which could represent the beginning of a Fall wave ahead.

[Slide entitled Local COVID-19 Vaccine Program that shows 82.4% of WDG residents have at least one dose and 74.9% are fully vaccinated]

Of course, you likely have heard from us in many different forms by now that we are really, really emphasizing the importance of getting vaccinated. We’re fortunate not just to have multiple vaccines available in our community, but to have those vaccines incredibly safe and effective, and we have them now in such quantities that we’re able to offer both first and second doses to anyone who is eligible who wants to receive them.

We’ve moved from really prioritizing the vaccine to those who are most at risk, back in January and February, to now being able to offer it to anyone 12 and up who is willing to walk into one of our clinics. And of course that’s not just about our clinics, but we are now making sure that people can access vaccines through pharmacies, primary care settings, popup settings, and over the course of the past year, the clinic at the University of Guelph has been a huge, huge component of our overall vaccination strategy, and has led to many, many doses given, many COVID cases averted, and many hospitalizations and deaths averted as a consequence.

We know now that the cases we are seeing are predominantly among those who are not vaccinated, or who are not completely vaccinated. The number of cases we’re seeing among those who have gotten their two doses is incredibly small. And that really speaks to the effectiveness of these vaccines, and the importance of getting vaccinated if you haven’t already.

We’re fortunate that we have now had over 80% of people in our community who have gotten their first dose, and about three quarters of people who have gotten their second dose, as well. We do want to get those numbers up as high as we can. We are not done with our immunization rollout quite yet. But if you or someone you know is someone who hasn’t gotten their vaccine yet, please, please, please do get it. We want to make it as easy as possible to get because it does make a difference to you, it makes a difference to those around you, and it makes a difference to those in the community around you.

[Slide entitled Who has been vaccinated locally? which shows a graph with the percentage of WDG residents who have been vaccinated by age group]

Again, I mentioned that we have prioritized vaccinations and have gradually expanded to groups of people who are eligible and who are eligible to receive the vaccine. We’re fortunate right now that we have across all the eligible age groups within our community, very high coverage levels. Of course highest in those older adults, where we were able to roll things out first. But even among our younger populations we’re 70% plus first doses with a significant majority of second doses across all these age groups.

We do want to get those higher. And in particular, if you’re someone who’s in that younger age group where we’re seeing 70-72% coverage, we’re really imploring you to get vaccinated if you haven’t already because we want to get those numbers as high [00:18:00] as we can and to get those numbers as even as we can across all of our age groups. Because those numbers represent the risk that exists in our community and as we’re thinking about who’s going to be returning to campus, we want to make sure that everyone is immunized that didn’t get immunized.

[Slide entitled Who has been vaccinated locally? which shows that 59.3% of those 18 to 25 in WDG have been fully vaccinated and 66.1% of those 18 to 25 in Guelph have been fully vaccinated.]

Again, looking at within WDG, as well as Guelph specifically in that youngest age group, we have, as I mentioned, between 70% and 75 or 76% of people who are vaccinated with their first dose, and over half of people with their second dose of being fully vaccinated. And it’s that fully vaccinated number that really makes the biggest difference.

We know that with delta variant, as the variant that is a dominant in our area now, and that will dominate, we expect, this Fall, it is a variant that really relies on you having that two dose level of protection. And so we want that second column of numbers, the fully vaccinated figures, to really get as high as we possibly can and to encourage everyone to get not just a first dose, but a second dose if they haven’t already.

[Slide entitled To get your first or second dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, choose the option easiest for you: which explains how to book online, telephone, drop-in clinic or through a pharmacy or primary care.]

We do try to make getting your first or second dose as easy as possible and there are a number of ways that you can access vaccines in our community. You can book online through our e-portal on our website. There’s a link there to that portal. We also have links to it on our homepage of wdgpublichealth.ca. You can give us a call at 1-844-780-0202, any week day between eight and eight, and we will also book something for you over the phone if the web option doesn’t work well for you.

And of course any of our clinics that we’re offering, you can drop in and get your first dose or second dose. We want to make sure it’s easy and convenient, and it doesn’t pose any more obstacles than it absolutely has to, because we know how critical it is to get that last 20% or so of people in our community immunized so that we can get things as high as possible and limit community risk.

Finally, as I mentioned, it’s not just us public health partners that are running clinics, but also [00:20:00] pharmacy and primary care providers who are offering vaccines now. And there is information available at COVID-19ontario.ca, where they can list out exactly which pharmacies, for example, are offering a vaccine, and of course, you can contact your own primary care provider about their availability to give you a vaccine, if that’s your preferred way to access it.

[Slide entitled What can be done now to ensure the safest possible return to campus in the fall? which lists getting vaccinated, wearing a mask, physically distancing, staying home when sick and following provincial guidelines as ways to control COVID-19 on campus and in the Guelph community.]

I’m just going to end off by talking about the key things that all of us can do to ensure we have a safe as possible return to campus. Obviously, I’ve been talking a lot about the importance of getting vaccinated. And that is the most important thing to do if you haven’t done it already. We are asking you to get the COVID-19 shot yourself, but also if you have gotten it, to encourage those around you to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

We know that as much as we can talk at Public Health about the importance of getting vaccinated, people who haven’t gotten it yet are much, much more open to hearing about it from people who they know, who they trust, who they have existing relationships with. And so if you care about having a safe community and a safe campus this Fall, please talk to people you know who are hesitant or haven’t gotten the vaccine yet about the importance of getting vaccinated, because it is the most important tool in our tool belts as we enter times ahead.

Of course things like wearing a mask and physically distancing are key measures that will continue to be important because we know that not everyone is going to be vaccinated at all times and COVID-19 is something that can spread through close contact, and those key measures that we’ve been talking about for a long time are still important with where we are in the pandemic right now.

Of course if you’re feeling sick, staying home is important, and that applies to whether you’re vaccinated or not. Because we want to make sure we’re keeping our campus and other environments as safe as can be. And we want to make sure that we are really engineering all these settings to be as safe as we can make them.

It’s not in the slide show, but I do want to recognize, of course, the great leadership taken by the University of Guelph in mandating COVID-19 vaccinations for those who are entering campus. That is going to contribute to a safer campus environment this Fall. It’s a great step that we at Public Health fully support. And again, it speaks to the importance and the impact that the vaccines have for those who are going to be in our campus as we enter the Fall months.

So please, to make sure that you have not just safety, and to provide safety to those around you, but to make sure you have a successful year ahead, as a university community member. Please, please, please do get vaccinated. And again, any further questions about the vaccine, please ask them on this call, or please contact us at Public Health, because we’re happy to get you what you need to make sure you feel confident getting vaccinated.

I’m just going to end there with my pair of slides, but I’m happy to take questions that come up during the town hall today.

Aaron Miller: “Thank you so much, Dr. Tenenbaum. We really appreciated all the support you’ve offered the University of Guelph and we really value your great partnership between Public Health and the university, so thank you very much.

So now I guess it’s time for us to move into the question period. Just again, to reiterate what I said off the top, so we have pre-submitted questions that we’re bundling some of those, just for time purposes, because a lot of them had very similar themes. Again, the chat is also open, so if that’s an option where you have a question right now, we also have people who are monitoring that and will give questions to us.

Unfortunately, we only do have an hour today, so I guess without further ado, I’ll start the first questions. The first question that came in is for Vice President Rasheed. Said what is the status of building ventilation assessments on campus?

Charlotte Yates: “Sharmilla, you’re on mute.”

Sharmilla Rasheed: “Sorry. Had to do that live. Thanks, Aaron. I’ll given a general overview and then I will pass it on to Steve Nyman, our Director for Maintenance and Energy Services to get into details based on specific questions we have received over the last several weeks, and as well for this phone call.

So all our buildings are running a maximum outside air flow including units for offices. Classrooms, seminar spaces, and teaching labs were specifically assessed due to the occupant proximity and load and will run with a threshold of six equivalent air changes per hour. Well over 200 classrooms scheduled for this Fall semester have ventilation measurements and assessment completed, true to physical resources, maintenance and energy services.

We have achieved the six effective air changes per hour, either through actual air movement or augmented by air purifiers through all the assessed spaces. All of these are listed in our COVID-19 webpage, which we updated this morning. We also added a quick link so it’s easy to access, and have added some ventilation FAQs there that came through from people across our campus and specific questions.

If any other spaces are added to the Fall semester for utilization, we will continue to assess those. I will quickly pass this over to Steve to get into details on the ventilation, but before I do that, I just want to add and reiterate it, because those things are being asked about other safety measures about masks and  physical distancing, hand hygiene, et cetera. All those are robustly in place here at the University of Guelph, and I’ll update it on our return to campus webpages and are in line with public health guidelines. So over to you, Steve.

Steve Nyman: “Great. Thank you, Vice President Rasheed. I’m just discussing some points of interest and some questions and conversations that have occurred.

There was some questions on process [00:26:00] of how we did this. We basically have opened the ventilation devices to achieve the six air changes and I want to stress that it’s six outside air changes and in places where we could not achieve the six outside air changes, we are using air purification units that have the capability of duplicating outside air through HEPA filtration and UV treatment. And HEPA, sorry, stands for high efficiency particulate air filters, that they’re a well-known technology to create the equivalent of outside air.

And so there was some concern about the status of those settings, that as we do measurements, we leave those devices, and these are devices that are typically in the ceilings of classrooms, that they’re left in positions, so they’re maintain the measured air flows and there is a quick link to the results that we’ve posted, and it’s also on the physical resources webpage for anyone that wants to check a specific space.

You look through everyone’s research, you might see a reference to demand control ventilation, and that’s typically an algorithm that building automation follows to vary the amount of ventilation, be it outside air, return air, that type of thing. That’s being disabled, so the use of outside air is, that it can’t be changed.

The measurements were done by our own trades workers in conjunction with consultants that have been certified by the National Environmental Balancing Bureau, that they’ve worked together to do this work. So the actual purification units, there was some question around those of whether they were noisy, whether anyone could tamper with them. If you wanted to actually look up the unit, they are Sanuvox S300. They’ve very quiet, 59 decibels at five feet, and there really is no adjustment. As I said before, they use HEPA filtration and UV treatment and they’re basically on and off.

And there was some concern of classroom spaces that perhaps had some questions related to HVAC prior to the pandemic. We want to encourage that you submit your requests to the work order desk, purely for the reason that that’s the best way for us to triage problems that are reported on campus and the staff at the work order desk do have a framework in place of how to distribute those requests to the rest of us in physical resources. So that’s the most effective and efficient way to actually get those requests looked after.

Some questions about the six air changes. That was a number that, through research, so ASHRAE, which is the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air Conditioning Engineers, it’s a level that was intended for medical treatment rooms. And the reason that we chose six changes was to deal with variation, as well, that the actual recommendations for classrooms and educational facilities is lower, but to have a very robust answer that could accommodate some changes as we went through the pandemic.

We decided to work to the higher standard that existed for medical facilities, and so six air changes with outside air, or the equivalent of outside air, is a very robust standard, and does accommodate some ability to react to, or not need to react to changes as they occur.

In terms of the best practices, the documents and research, there’s some Harvard University studies that are often cited in pandemic situations. They had recommended four to six air changes for classrooms and universities within those studies, and as I said before, that ASHRAE pointed to six for medical examination rooms and treatment rooms that might involve aerosols.

Aaron Miller:     “Steve, I’m sorry to interject, but you’ve given such a great detailed answer to this, but we have a ton of questions coming in, so would it be possible just to wrap up with something in conclusion and we can move on, because we’re getting a ton of questions coming in through the chat?”

Steve Nyman:   “As luck would have it, I’m done.”

Aaron Miller: “Okay. Good timing, then. Good timing. Thank you again so much to both of you for those answers. The next question is going to Acting Provost Cate Dewey. Please describe the science behind the 60% face-to-face target for the Fall, as well as the 250 person per classroom cap. Will classrooms have a population density target, or will 250 students be packed into a room of 250 seats?

Cate Dewey: “Thank you very much for this question. I will start with the 250. So as we all know, over this pandemic, public health directives have often included reduced numbers of people in a given air space. While we didn’t have or expect such a directive for the Fall, Provost Gwen Chapman chose to limit classes to 250 students, primarily to avoid having classes that were bigger than 250 because as we know, we have classes that could be five or 600 students.

So by limiting the number of students, that has actually limited the number of students in an air space. So by doing so, we were able then to put our biggest classes into classrooms that were much larger than the 250 limit, with an idea that we would have a larger air space for the largest classes. As we filled  classrooms, we filled them from the biggest classrooms with the biggest number of students, to the smallest. So that does not mean that we had a specific density in mind. We used the large classes to the best of our ability.

And as far as the 60%, I think I need to take you back to the very beginning. The aim was that students were coming back on campus, and the aim was to give as many students a face-to-face class opportunity as possible. We are expecting that students will come back on campus and we are trying to give them a fulsome campus experience.

In our discussions, this was particularly important for the first- and second-year students coming onto campus. As we know, the second-year students had a remote learning experience last year, and the first year students will have had a lot of remote learning during high school.

So we wish that [00:34:00] to happen for our students. We also aimed to have every student in every program have at least one face-to-face course. So those were the principles that we used when we were designing the Fall semester. The cap of 250 students became a limitation for us when it came to first- and second-year classes because often those are the classes that are the largest. So many of those classes actually were reverted to remote learning classes.

And so the 60% that we ultimately aimed for was probably lower than we had hoped for in the beginning. But given that we were limiting class sizes to 250, that and, as everybody knows, we have some very large first and second year classes with multiple sections. 60% was where we were able to land once we had the courses scheduled.

We are hoping that every student still has an opportunity for face-to-face class and for some students, that is not necessarily a lecture, but maybe a seminar or a lab, given the course that they’re taking. Hope that answers the question.

Aaron Miller: “Thank you so much, Cate. Appreciate that. The next question that’s come in is for President Yates. We’ve had several questions come in we’ve got about why this decision of the vaccine mandate has been made now and not sooner.”

Charlotte Yates: “Thanks very much, Aaron, and thanks for the questions. All of you who know me, who participate in these events, I do try and keep track of the questions, so I’ve been watching as questions emerge. So this isn’t a surprise to me, obviously.

So why now? I can tell there are some people very frustrated we didn’t make it weeks, months ago. So let me explain why now and then let me talk a little about enforcement versus attestation.

So let me start by saying, we have been advocating loudly and in collaboration with all the other universities across Ontario, with the government of Ontario, to in fact give us leadership in terms of a vaccine passport, or some kind of green pass that would allow us to monitor vaccination rates on campus, but would also support us in requiring vaccines.

The government has chosen not to take that step, and as we’ve been monitoring that, we clearly have to then take action in our own hands, and for that reason the last week, 10 days, you’ve seen a cluster of universities coming out with very, very similar plans.

Why now? We’ve been watching the environment as has happened throughout the pandemic, the environment has been changing rapidly. It’s changed, as Dr. Tenenbaum said, between the first, second, third wave, and now as we watch the delta variant, we see growing evidence of the spread and the contagion of the delta variant. So that’s one of the factors that we had to consider in thinking about mandated vaccines.

The second is watching the vaccination rates of our young population, and again, we’re very fortunate in Guelph. We have a very high rate, relatively speaking, of young people, and from also these from a lot of our fellow universities. Those entering universities have an even higher rate of vaccination.

Further still, the vaccination rate for that young 18-39 population is increasing by about 1% per week. So I think we are on the right track, but we’re using this measure to urge, encourage, and really ask young people in particular, but also our staff and faculty who are not yet vaccinated, to get the vaccine. It is our greatest protection against the virus, including the variants.

The other thing of course factoring into our decision is access to vaccines. As you know, and I see there are a couple of comments in the chat function, access to vaccines was absolutely critical before any mandating of vaccines was possible. And I mean access not for you and I who live in large cities, I mean all of the various communities across Ontario needed to have access to vaccines, ready access, as did all of different age groups.

As we’ve watched that and we’ve watched the uptick in vaccines and we’ve seen greater access, it then became possible for us to mandate vaccines without arguing, without leading to creating a two tier system, where some people had access and others didn’t. Now with the widespread access to the vaccine, we’re able to be sure that people have that access so we can play a role in making sure they have that access.

Finally, the university is mitigating risk. We can’t guarantee the elimination of all risk. We never have been able to, for any disease. We’re trying our best to mitigate risk as much as possible. We’re following public health guidelines. We are in many cases, exceeding many of the steps of other institutions. But what we’re trying to do is keep our campus safe in the best way we know possible. And that is by combining vaccination, in this case mandating vaccines, with continued public health measures. Masking, hand washing, social distancing, respect for one another in a work and learning environment, in ways that will keep us safe, which then takes us to, I will answer the question before Aaron poses it, about I know I can see there’s a lot of question about how we’re enforcing this.

In the days ahead, we will be clarifying many of the exact details of how we’ll be doing this, but right now, we are using this as mandating vaccines through an attestation by individuals, on campus. And that attestation will go through an online portal where we will gather aggregate data. We must protect the privacy of others and for that reason, we are aggregating the data so that we can track levels of vaccination, but not in fact be privy to your own individual information.

Attestation means that there is a voluntary and a public health educational component to compliance. Like many regulations, we’re not going to be, except in egregious cases, actively enforcing. We are not going to become a carding campus. I am not asking TAs, graduate students, researchers, faculty, to enforce. And that’s what this would come down to unless we can get an easy mechanism such as a vaccine passport.

So for the moment, we are investigating all possible options. We will be diving into the details in the days to come, but right now, we are using voluntary compliance, and this is aimed at behavioral change. We’ve many, many instances across Canada, and across history, to show that this can work. We’ve already been incredibly successful at getting high rates of vaccination in our community through  public health measures, through persuasion, through scientific evidence. We will continue to use those measures, but with a doubling down of saying that we do expect you to be vaccinated if you come on to campus. Thanks, Aaron.

Aaron Miller:  “Thank you, President Yates. Yeah. The enforcement question came up quite a few times, so thank you for addressing that.

The next two questions, we’re actually going to bundle them together for Dr. Tenenbaum. So there is a pair of questions. So the first one is when will under 12 age group be able to have access to vaccines? And then the second one is about transmissibility. So they’re asking a question about if they catch the virus, how likely is it that they could still pass it onto someone, even if they, too, have been vaccinated?”

Dr. Matthew Tenenbaum: “Thanks, Aaron. So I’ll address both of those in order, the first one being about vaccinations of those under 12. This is really important area for us to be keeping an eye on because we know that, given how easily transmitted delta is, and given how high the levels of coverage  need to be in our community to really approach herd immunity, we need to have as many people eligible as possible, and a sizeable chunk of our population is under age 12 and therefore not really eligible.

We know that the key vaccine manufacturers are in various stages of doing clinical trials to make sure that they have something they can offer that is effective and safe in those younger age groups. I think we’re expecting to see some of that data in the coming months that they submitted, for example, to Health Canada, and to the other agencies like Health Canada around the world.

And we don’t have a timeline of exactly when the vaccine will be available to go into people’s arms locally, but I know we’re going to have many updates over the Fall, as you begin to hear about the outcomes of these trials, and perhaps hear about the production of these vaccines and when they might be available within our community.

So more to come on that and I imagine we’ll be communicating as Public Health a lot about that as we learn more, but we are optimistic that we will have something in the next coming months.

The next question that you asked, Aaron, is about the transmissibility of the delta variant, and we know that delta is much more transmissible than what we’ve dealt with in the past. For most of the pandemic, we’ve been dealing with a form of COVID that was at risk of overwhelming some of our healthcare capacity. That was before the VOCs came into the picture. And early this calendar year, we had the alpha variant as it’s now known, that was about one and a half times as easily transmitted as the previous form of COVID. And that led to our third wave, which we can all remember in recent history.

Delta is thought to be at least another one and a half times as transmissible as that alpha variant. So we’re looking at something which has a very high R value. It’s very easily transmitted from person to person, and one person with the infection can pass it onto other people. We know that people who are vaccinated are at much lower risk of getting the infection, if they’re exposed to someone who has a case of COVID-19. We know that people who are vaccinated are a very small fraction of the cases that we see.

We do see occasional breakthrough cases as they’re called, meaning cases among those who are vaccinated. But they are rare. And those cases happen because no vaccine is perfect and as long as COVID exists in our community, there is always some risk, but the vaccine dramatically reduces that risk that you face if you happen to be in contact with someone who has COVID. And that’s a critically important thing to know.

We also have evidence, as we learn more about exactly how much being vaccinated reduces your risk of passing the infection on, if you happen to have it. We’re learning a lot more out of places in the U.S., for example, where they’re having outbreaks. The science on that is evolving. But we know that overall, being vaccinated dramatically reduces your risk of having COVID and reduces your risk of being part of a chain of transmission that can lead to further community spread.

Aaron Miller: “Great. Thank you so much, Dr. Tenenbaum. Appreciate it. The next question goes back to President Yates. This person is wondering about visitors to campus. For example, prospective students and their families on campus tours, open house events, et cetera, and if the vaccine mandate applies to them, and how would this be enforced or regulated?”

Charlotte Yates: “Thanks very much, Aaron, and I’ll start and then I’ll pass it over to Vice President Rasheed. So we’re currently working through the details of the protocols that we need to have in place to keep the campus safe with visitors, and I say we’re working through this because you can imagine that there are many children that visit our campus. We can’t possibly require them as they’re not eligible for the vaccine.

So we must work through the various different types of visitors who we do expect to come to campus, and we will be developing protocols. We will be encouraging all those people, we continue to encourage all people on our campus, off our campus, to get the vaccine and we will continue to communicate that. The best protection of everybody is to get the vaccine. But we are working on those protocols and maybe, Vice President Rasheed, I will turn it over to you.”

Sharmilla Rasheed: “Sure. Thank you, Charlotte. So as Charlotte said, we’re working through the details and vaccination for all visitors on campus, and are considering it. However, we do know that we will be using the screening tool to indicate whether you are vaccinated or not vaccinated or choose not to answer the question and we are expecting all visitors on campus to complete those screening tools, and they will have that opportunity to complete that question on the vaccination. More details on whether this will be mandatory for visitors, especially coming indoors of our facility, will be coming out later. But we’re working through the details on that.”

Aaron Miller: “Great. Thank you so much, Vice President Rasheed. Well since you were already talking, we have another question for you that’s come up here. With vaccinations now becoming mandatory, will masking still be mandatory on campus?”

Sharmilla Rasheed: “Thanks, Aaron. Yes. All safety measures that are in place, according to public health, are still required on campus. That includes hand hygiene, masks, and physical distances, if you’re able to, as much as possible. And especially indoors. If you’re outdoors and you’re unable to be physically apart, masks will be expected to be worn, as well, especially when we’re having events with large group of people, you will be required to wear a mask.

We also will have PPP available for people who require them, based on their roles that they’re performing, whether that’s eye protection, or otherwise.”

Aaron Miller: “Great. Thank you so much. The next question coming is for Cate Dewey, Acting Provost. Now that the university has mandated the vaccines, how does the university plan to accommodate international students arriving into Canada, who perhaps didn’t have access to vaccines? And will there be a buffer period before this mandate comes into effect, since it would take at least a month for some to get fully vaccinated?”

Cate Dewey: “Thank you. So certainly international students coming to Canada will have to follow the 14 day isolation period, as all international arrivees to Canada do. We’re expecting that some students may be vaccinated. They may not have two vaccines, and they could certainly be coming from a country where the vaccine’s not been available.

We will have the vaccine available on our campus for any student coming, and staff, I would say, students, staff, and faculty who haven’t been able to be vaccinated, you’re able to get the vaccine at Student Health Services. And we will normally help international students through the self isolation process, but we’ll also ensure that they have access to the vaccine.

As we are planning our mandatory vaccination process, we would expect that students would get, if they’re not vaccinated, would get the vaccine as soon as they arrive on campus, and would get their booster as soon as they’re eligible for a booster. So as soon as possible, we will have all students vaccinated if they’re eligible and do not have a reason to be accommodated.”

Aaron Miller: “Great. Thank you, Provost Dewey. There’s also a follow up question to that, I guess we can bundle. So also, we’re getting questions about what resources are available to students who miss in person classes or labs when needing to self-isolate or quarantine if they’re exposed to the COVID-19 virus.”

Cate Dewey: “Realistically, if we think about students who have illness, probably for as long as the university has been open, we’ve had issues to deal with students who are ill and not able to go to class. And so our current protocols for students who are not able to go to class will not differ in September, according to what we’ve done in the past.

So examples of what students have done, perhaps they get notes from a classmate. For faculty members who are posting their PowerPoint presentations or posting their lectures, students will have access to that. And if students are ill and not able to complete an assignment or a midterm, then they’ll have to ask for accommodation from their faculty member, just as they’ve done in the past.”

Aaron Miller: “Provost Dewey, you’re very popular. We have another question for you that’s just come in, as well. They’re fast and furious. What will happen to on campus classes if another lockdown happens?”

Cate Dewey: “Well, if we have another lockdown and we’re not able to be on campus, I think that we will have to pivot, if people are not too upset with that word, I think it still fits, pivot to remote courses. It is definitely not something, obviously we all hope that that doesn’t happen, and as I said before, we’re hoping for a robust Fall semester on campus. But if we’re told by the province that we’re not able to be on campus anymore, or not able to be in face-to-face classes anymore, those that don’t have exceptions will have to pivot.

As probably many people on this call recognize, there have been in the past, exceptions for parts of programs where maybe students still have their labs, if there is mandatory parts of a course where you have to be face-to-face, so hopefully something like that would happen, but if we’re talking about lectures, we would likely have to pivot to remote delivery.”

Aaron Miller: “Great. Thank you so much. And I just wanted to thank everyone, too, for submitting their questions. Our team had been working fast and furious to try to answer as many of them as they can and there’s obviously going to be some that we didn’t get a chance to address in real time, live, here today, but as I mentioned off the top, we’re going to be answering questions in the chat and then we’re also going to be posting a Q&A on our COVID website for all the questions that weren’t answered. So we are really attempting to answer everything that’s come through, and that we’re making a really concerted effort to do that.

If you do have any new questions, as well, and we have a website from the return to work site, which will be put in the chat, as well. It’s r2w@uoguelph.ca, and you’ll find that in the chat where you can send an email to, if you have another question. You can also even use our central social media channels and it will be forwarded to the right person. So there’s lots of opportunities for you to ask.

So before we hand it off to President Yates for some closing remarks, I just wanted to again thank Dr. Tenenbaum for his ongoing support for the university, and for the entire Guelph community. I wanted to also thank our leadership team for coming out today and making yourself available to answer all the questions. I’m sure our community really appreciates the transparency and that as you can imagine, everybody has a lot of questions about what’s happening, so I think these kind of events are really helpful to make people feel much more comfortable. So I want to introduce President Yates once again for some final words.

Charlotte Yates: “Thanks very much, Aaron, and I apologize. I was getting caught up in trying to read all the Q&As. There’s a lot there and I know that we’ll be taking those questions back as we continue to discuss, plan, and figure out the details of this. So rest assured everything you say to us, we’re listening, and also we’re trying to figure out the answers. We don’t have all the answers. Nobody has all the answers, and fortunately for us, by working collaboratively with those across campus, but also with our colleagues in Public Health, we’re much closer to doing a better and better job.

So I just want to say, echo Aaron’s thank you to all of you for joining us today to take the time, but also for all the questions. They’re incredibly helpful. And Dr. Tenebaum, thank you again for willingly giving us some of your time. I know how busy you are at Public Health, to support the university and the broader Guelph community in this. You can expect more details on the vaccine mandate, on ventilation and the expert and various other issues in the days ahead. And so please keep your eye out and we’ll try and keep you as informed as possible.

I want to close on a more personal note, just to say thank you all. I know this is a stressful time and I know the next few months will be an important part of us coming to terms with what we’ve  been going through and how we move forward. That’s an important part of restoring us to the community. We are and we want to continue to be, and I promise you that I’m working hard on that, and I look forward to seeing you, talking to you about those issues.

We’ve responded to an incredible number of challenges this year, and in large part because of all of you, the staff, the faculty, the students have accommodated, have been flexible, have shown support for one another, and unwavering dedication to the University of Guelph, and I want to say thank you and I share with you in that dedication. I’m confident that we can meet each and every new challenge that comes our way. I know it’s difficult. I know people are tired. So I hope that you will enjoy some of the rest of the summer and I look forward to seeing you in the Fall.

Thank you. Take care, and thanks for joining us, and we will be, keep an eye out just in case we decide to have yet another town hall. I think as we go forward, as we get closer to the fall, it’s quite likely that we will have another town hall, but we will continue to communicate.

So thank you, have a nice day, and thanks to everybody who participated on the call today. Your commitment I appreciate, and the answers you’ve given. And if you require any further information or you have other questions, please feel free to send them, including to the president’s email. I’ll make sure that we get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks very much. Have a nice day.“