CSULB to receive Moderna COVID-19 vaccine

By: Madalyn Amato and Julia Terbeche

Long Beach State will begin receiving its first shipments of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine in the upcoming weeks Scott Apel, vice president of administration and finance, announced via email Thursday.

“This is an important and positive development for our campus, and all members of the Beach community are encouraged to sign up online to receive the vaccine when it becomes available to us,” Jeff Cook, associate vice president of strategic communications, said.

Cook said that the university “does not yet have a date for when the initial doses will be made available to our campus.”

“The campus is developing a rollout plan that will give priority first to health and safety personnel, followed by others working on campus and those with heightened health risks,” Apel wrote. “Vaccinations that are administered on campus will be available only to CSULB students, faculty and staff as well as those employed by university auxiliary organizations.” 

A survey form must be completed by those seeking the vaccine to organize patients in a phased distribution. Faculty, staff and students can access the survey through their campus Single Sign-On.

“All members of the Beach community — students, faculty, and staff — are eligible to participate in our vaccine dispensing program,” Cook said.

Apel’s message assured the community that the vaccine is 95% effective and that “distribution of the vaccine will help quell the spread of this deadly virus and it will help us to return to predominantly in-person instruction this fall.”

The Moderna vaccine is administered through two separate injections 28 days apart, Apel maintained in the email, and everyone, including those who have already contracted the virus, is encouraged to get vaccinated as lasting immunity remains “unclear.”

“As a society, we must achieve what’s termed ‘herd immunity’ that is made possible, in large part, by this extraordinary scientific achievement,” he wrote.

According to Kimberly Fodran, CSULB’s medical director, the university has been working to acquire doses of the vaccine since late November.