<p>BALTIMORE — Maryland’s public higher education system will require that students, faculty and staff returning to campuses in the fall be vaccinated against COVID-19.</p>
<p>University System of Maryland Chancellor Jay Perman announced the decision in <a href="https://www.usmd.edu/newsroom/news/2154#">a statement</a> Friday. The system will allow appropriate exemptions for medical or religious reasons, the statement said.</p>
<p>“If we examine the data — and there is an extraordinary accumulation of data — we see that the risk of vaccines is very low, whereas the risk of COVID is very high. And that risk is increasingly falling on young people,” Perman said.</p>
<p>The announcement came a day after the 10-campus University of California system and the 23-campus California State University system <a href="https://apnews.com/article/us-news-health-education-california-coronavirus-vaccine-28a4729ef178edad794d4362c5f2482a">said </a> they intend to require vaccines in the fall, in the largest announcement of its kind in American higher education.</p>
<p>Across the country, colleges have <a href="https://apnews.com/article/us-colleges-divided-student-coronavirus-vaccination-8c46ab65afc4538cb060c320ed94fc54">been divided</a> on the issue. Some private universities have recently told students they must get vaccinated, but other schools are leaving the decision to students.</p>
<p>The Maryland system said it would also continue with other mitigation strategies like pre-arrival COVID-19 testing, surveillance testing and public health interventions like masking.</p>
<p>The system includes 12 universities and three regional higher education centers serving about 135,000 undergraduate and about 41,000 graduate students, according to its website.</p>
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<p>Follow AP’s coverage of the pandemic at <a href="https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic">https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic</a> and <a href="https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak">https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak</a>.</p>
