COVID-19 Statement
Baylor University Department of Biology Statement on COVID-19 Pandemic Mitigation
The rapid development and approval of COVID-19 vaccines are a testament to the innovation and rigor of our global scientific community. However, progress toward COVID-19 remediation and prevention is being undermined by anti-vaccine and other disease-prevention disinformation1.
The faculty in the Department of Biology affirm the science and careful consideration already given these matters by the scientific community as a whole and by agencies such as the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO). We encourage the university faculty, staff, and students to do everything within their power to protect human life both on our campus and our surrounding community. We ask that everyone receive a COVID-19 vaccination and strongly encourage the university continue to require masking in indoor gatherings.
Our reasons for these assertions are:
- The world’s experts at the CDC and WHO both recommend vaccination and masking, even among the vaccinated, in indoor gatherings given our community’s high rate of transmission2,3
- The CDC and WHO recommendations are supported by the primary literature of peer-reviewed research on SARS-CoV-2 and the COVID-19 pandemic4
- Continued viral replication could result in the evolution of more virulent variants of the virus leading to continuation of the pandemic.
We endorse these interventions not just for our own protections, but for those in our communities. In Romans 14:13-14 it is written: “Let us not therefore judge one another anymore: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his brother's way.” We believe that it is our Christian duty to follow these guidelines established through rigorous scientific investigation in order to ensure the maximum possible safety of our students, faculty and staff and to minimize the negative impact of Baylor University on the surrounding community.
1 https://media.nature.com/original/magazine-assets/d41586-021-01084-x/d41586-021-01084-x.pdf
2 https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully-vaccinated-guidance.html