Announcements

Dear colleagues and students,

The recent emergence of the Omicron variant has reminded us that the COVID-19 pandemic is far from over.

The Chinese University of Hong Kong is committed to ensuring the safety of our community and is continually reviewing the latest health advice and epidemiology to ensure we have an appropriate response to what remains a major global health emergency.

Scientists around the world are still reviewing data to assess the seriousness of the new variant, and we believe that vaccination remains vital to our ongoing battle against the pandemic.

This message is to advise you that from the commencement of Term 2, 2021-22 (10 January 2022), the University will require all staff and students who are not vaccinated to undergo weekly testing in order to access campus or the University’s facilities.  

This move aligns our approach with the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, which now requires government employees who have not received at least one dose of a vaccine to undergo weekly testing.

The University believes this is a proportionate response to current public health risk in Hong Kong, and has been decided from an abundance of caution designed to keep our community safe.

The University will not hesitate to bring the implementation date further forward and introduce additional measures as appropriate should there be any community transmission, or if there are any further developments heightening public health risk.

The University will continue to offer testing kits at a discounted price for those who require regular self-testing on a weekly basis due to medical reasons.

Furthermore, we recognise that Hong Kong’s evolving risk categorisation for inbound arrivals and accompanying quarantine restrictions may have adversely affected students currently outside Hong Kong who had been planning on returning to Hong Kong prior to the commencement of Term 2. The University will therefore continue to accommodate these students through the provision of special teaching and learning arrangements such as online classes, lecture recording and individualized online tutorials as determined by the Faculties concerned.

Our message remains that vaccination is essential in consolidating our hard-fought successes against the pandemic to date and would encourage anyone still unvaccinated to get protected as soon as possible.

We have additionally prepared a range of FAQs to assist with your questions about the University’s response. Please see https://www.cuhk.edu.hk/english/whats-on/focus/vaccination-faq.html for a detailed set of FAQs.

Thank you for doing your part to keep our community safe.

Yours sincerely,
CUHK Emergency Response Group