The days of the COVID-19 mandate are long gone. New incoming students will not know the troubles of on-campus learning at Fullerton College post COVID. The state-wide mandate enforced students to be fully vaccinated with the requirement of wearing masks up until June 1, 2022 in which they became optional to wear indoors.

“The requirement to upload a vaccination record or request an exemption is not in effect,” says Lisa McPheron, Director of Campus Communications at Fullerton College.

During the most recent on-campus learning semesters, students and employees were required by state mandate to be vaccinated and wear masks while on campus. “The vaccine mandate has sunsetted for NOCCCD,” said McPheron. “What we are doing now is strongly encouraging vaccinations and booster shots, but it’s not a requirement.”

However, COVID is still a campus priority as FC remains committed to protecting the well being of students, faculty, staff, and the community it serves by offering free testing. “The Health Center is giving away rapid self-test. You can pick up a test from them Monday – Thursday from 09:00 a.m. – 05:00 p.m.,” says McPheron.

PCR testing, widely considered to be the most reliable tests for people with or without symptoms, is also being offered at the Health Center. “Those tests are available Tuesdays from 09:00 a.m. – 02:00 p.m.,” said McPheron.

Contact Tracing, the process of identifying individuals who have been in the proximity of someone diagnosed with the disease, will still be offered on-campus. “We have few people that are contact tracers. If a student or employee has COVID and was on campus and might have caused an exposure, they will still go through an internal contact tracing process, because those numbers need to be reported to the county agency”, McPheron stated.

McPheron said that Fullerton College will most likely phase out COVID announcements soon from fullcoll.edu. The Campus Communications Department anticipates making one more announcement including information on instructions on current COVID exposure counts and who to contact for that information. “At this point, we know we can be nimble if there ever is another uptick. We know how to do it all now so if we ever see a surge, we will be able to respond to it and maybe adjust some of our policies.”