COVID-19 Related Information

Please go to the KU Protect website for information about:

  • Masks on campus
  • COVID testing
  • COVID vaccines
  • Safety procedures
  • Employee information
students wearing masks

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COVID Vaccine Requirement for Air, Land, and Sea Travel to United States

Update: As of June 12, 2022 the CDC no longer requires air passengers traveling from a foreign country to the United States to show a negative COVID-19 viral test or documentation of recovery from COVID-19 before they board their flight. The requirement to be "fully" vaccinated is still in place.

On October 25, 2021, President Biden issued a proclamation which, effective November 8, 2021, lifted the four current geographic travel ban restrictions, and replaced them with a global requirement that "noncitizens who are nonimmigrants" (almost all visa categories except permanent residents) traveling to the United States by air from any part of the world establish that they are fully vaccinated, with some limited exceptions.

The CDC webpage Requirement for Proof of COVID-19 Vaccination for Air Passengers describes the meaning of "fully vaccinated" for this purpose:

You are considered fully vaccinated:

  • 2 weeks (14 days) after your dose of an accepted single-dose COVID-19 vaccine.
  • 2 weeks (14 days) after your second dose of an accepted 2-dose series COVID-19 vaccine; or
  • 2 weeks (14 days) after you received the full series of an “active” (not placebo) COVID-19 vaccine in the U.S.-based AstraZeneca or Novavax COVID-19 vaccine trials
  • 2 weeks (14 days) after you received 2 doses of any “mix-and-match” combination of accepted COVID-19 vaccines administered at least 17 days apart*

If you don’t meet these requirements, you are NOT considered fully vaccinated.

*CDC has not recommended the use of mix-and-match COVID-19 vaccine primary series. However, such strategies are increasingly common in many countries outside of the United States. Therefore, for the purpose of interpreting vaccination records for travel to the United States, CDC will accept combinations of accepted COVID-19 vaccines."

Travel Assessments

Find out if you can board a flight to the United States using a travel assessment on the CDC webpage.

White House Fact Sheet

The White House has created a Fact Sheet to help answer questions about the vaccine requirement and summaries the following topics:

  • Fully Vaccinated Status
  • Proof of Vaccination
  • Accepted Vaccines
  • Enhanced Testing Requirements
  • Requirements for Children
  • Limited Exemptions from the Vaccination Requirement
  • Contract Tracing

CDC Sites

Applying for a Visa

On July 14, 2021, the State Department announced Phased Resumption of Routine Visa Services. These services will occur on an embassy by embassy basis. You will need to visit the embassy website directly to find out when they resume services. Unfortunately, there is no central location on which embassies will resume services. Search in the "News & Event" section of the website. If there is no announcement of the embassy resuming services, then visa services are still suspended.

You should monitor the U.S. Embassy where they will apply for a visa and secure an appointment as early as possible. Search for your local US embassy visa appointment wait times.

Airport and airline health and safety screening practices may vary. Check the website for the airports and airlines that will be a part of your trip to the U.S. when to travel to learn what you might encounter at each location.

If you will travel to Lawrence from outside of Kansas to begin classes, please see the Travel Quarantine Update on Watkins Health Services’ website to determine whether or not you will need to quarantine. (This section is located toward the bottom of the page. Please keep scrolling until you find it.) Because the infection rates can change rapidly, please continue to check the guidelines until after your date of arrival.