In St. Petersburg, 75% of students were not vaccinated

Less than a quarter of St. Petersburg university students have been vaccinated against the CORONAVIRUS. This follows from the answer of Andrey Maksimov, Chairman of the Committee on Science and Higher Education of St. Petersburg, to a question from journalists about the pace of vaccination of students. “In all universities, more than 25% of students are those who have been ill with coronavirus and those who have been vaccinated. So far, a small number of students have been vaccinated,” Demidov said, noting that “it depends on the youth whether the work of universities will be carried out offline or it will continue in a mixed mode.” As for the teaching staff of universities, according to the official, the level of vaccination among them almost meets the requirements of Rospotrebnadzor.

The fact that there is a problem in motivating students to get vaccinated was also noted by some other university leaders who took part in the press conference. According to Vlaimir Shamakhov, DIRECTOR of the NWMIU RANEPA, a minority of students at his university are determined to be vaccinated against the cornavirus; at various faculties today, from 8 to 30% of students are vaccinated. “We are trying to intensify this work in some way, the appeals of administrators are no longer working very well, we are more focused on the work of student councils and elders, so that they themselves convince students [to be vaccinated]. <…> In general, this is a serious problem and it probably needs to be solved not only on the scale of the university, but also on the scale of the city and the country,” he said.

St Petersburg University previously reported that out of 25 thousand students at the end of October, 3.5 thousand students and 50% of the university staff were vaccinated.

Recall that the decision of the chief sanitary DOCTOR for St. Petersburg prescribed to provide full vaccination against covid-19 by December 15 for at least 80% of the total number of employees of the educational institution. The decree does not mention mandatory vaccination of students.