Officials at Maryville College continue to monitor reports issued daily by state and local health officials, as well as the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the World Health Organization and the U.S. Department of State.
This page has been created to keep all of our constituents informed about global and national developments, decisions made with regard to the MC community and precautions taken on campus against the introduction and spread of the disease.
Updated Aug. 15, 2022
- COVID-19’s “typical” symptoms include: Fever or chills, cough, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, fatigue, muscle or body aches, headache, new loss of taste or smell, sore throat, congestion or runny nose, nausea or vomiting. You may have COVID even if you only have one of these symptoms.
- If you have symptoms, isolate yourself whether or not you’ve been vaccinated, and get tested!
- You can receive testing at pharmacies like CVS and Walgreens or at community locations like the Blount County Health Department or East Tennessee Medical Group. You can also purchase at-home rapid test kits at pharmacies or order free kits via the US Postal Service.
- If you’ve already been vaccinated, and it’s been more than five months if you got Pfizer or Moderna, or two months if you got the Johnson and Johnson single shot, get a booster shot – they’re easy to schedule at area pharmacies. Vaccines with boosters provide excellent protection against serious illness, and in many cases can prevent you from ever developing any symptoms at all.
- Without vaccination, all forms of COVID can be dangerous, even for people who seem to be otherwise in good health, and especially for those who are older or have underlying health issues.
- If you’ve been vaccinated and boosted and are exposed to COVID but don’t develop any symptoms, you don’t have to quarantine unless you develop symptoms; however, you should get tested after five days.
- If you test positive, isolate for five full days from the onset of symptoms, and then — if symptoms have resolved — wear a mask for five more days. If symptoms have not resolved, test yourself for COVID again; you may test negative even with some residual symptoms, and then can come back to class or work if masked. If you continue to get a positive test result, contact a medical provider and also your faculty members and/or supervisor.
- Your COVID case might be mild or even asymptomatic, but you are still contagious, and you could easily pass it along to someone who’s at risk due to age or medical condition, which could lead to a very serious case of COVID for them.
Students and faculty who have tested positive for COVID should not come to class, and students missing due to COVID will be given an alternative means of making progress in the course while they are absent. Students who are symptomatic but haven’t yet tested positive should also not come to class until they have tested at least twice to confirm that they don’t have COVID.
Students are responsible for reporting their COVID positive test result to their faculty members. In lieu of a doctor’s note, faculty may ask students to email or otherwise send a selfie that clearly shows their face and a positive COVID test as documentation of their illness.
Following CDC guidelines, after testing positive, individuals should isolate for five full days from the onset of symptoms, and then – if symptoms have resolved – wear a mask for five more days. If symptoms have not resolved, they should test themselves for COVID again; they may test negative even with some residual symptoms, and then can come back to class if masked. If students continue to get a positive test result, they should contact a medical provider and also let their faculty members know.
A COVID diagnosis will be treated like any other medically-excused absence: that is to say, faculty have broad discretion about how to enable students to make progress in the course or to make up work. Students should discuss their progress with their faculty members.
A COVID diagnosis (or any other illness) does not authorize an indefinite number of absences. After five days, students should either be back in class (masked for five more days) or have contacted faculty members explaining why that is not yet possible. Absent such communication, absences may not be excused and special accommodations may not be granted.
Those students who are at elevated risk for COVID or are suffering from protracted COVID-related illness may seek accommodation under the Americans with Disability Act. Students seeking accommodations should go through the Office of Disability Resources and Accessibility. The director is Kelly Hawk-Fitzgerald (kelly.fitzgerald@maryvillecollege.edu), and the assistant director is Debbie Stietenroth (debbie.stietenroth@maryvillecollege.edu).
Updated: January 27, 2022
While state government recently restricted our ability to require students be vaccinated against COVID, we can – and are – continuing to strongly encourage vaccinations. For students whose vaccinations were six or more months ago (or 2 months ago with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine), booster shots are necessary to be considered “fully vaccinated.” We continue to believe vaccination is a way of caring for others, as well as a way to return to the close-knit, small college, residential environment that has always been a hallmark of the MC experience.
Students, faculty, and staff can go online to find opportunities to receive a COVID-19 vaccine.
The Tennessee Health Department website offers up-to-date statistics on new cases, recoveries, hospitalizations, testing and more. The presence of COVID-19 in Blount County (where Maryville College is located) can be accessed from the health department’s epidemiology and surveillance data reports.
The COVID-19 webpages on the CDC website share up-to-date information on symptoms, complications, transmission, prevention, treatment and summary updates of the outbreak.