Bradley Health Services and Counseling

Good morning everyone! I apologize for the lack of updates on this site. The school year has gotten off to a crazy start. It is great to see everyone back on campus and we have certainly had our usual influx of illness a few weeks into classes (luckily very little COVID). We are also trying to manage the testing mandate issued by the governor and collect everyone's vaccine cards. Today will be our first flu shot clinic of the school year. It will be held in the Markin Performance Court. Reminder that flu shots are $1 for students. COVID-19 vaccines will be given at the same clinic. We will once again have Moderna and Johnson and Johnson available. These are free. No appointments are necessary. Both shots can be given at the same time! Let's prepare for a healthy winter on campus!

We are so excited to welcome everyone back to campus this weekend! A few reminders:
1) Masks are required in all indoor spaces on campus for vaccinated and unvaccinated.
2) Please submit your vaccination cards to [email protected] or stop by so we can make a copy at Health Services this weekend. We will be open from 10am-2pm Saturday and Sunday.
3) Testing is available for those unvaccinated students returning to campus. You can schedule an appointmet at https://covid-asymptomaticscreening.youcanbook.me.
4) Vaccines are also available on campus. You can schedule your appointment at https://buvaccine.youcanbook.me.
We are looking forward to a great year!

COVID Vaccine

Sharing the love for our amazing nursing staff today. It has been a crazy year but they have shown why they are the best of the best! Happy Nurses Week!

We are getting close to putting a wrap on this semester. Numbers have been steady on the COVID front on campus and starting to come down in the Peoria community. We will be offering asymptomatic testing to those who want it prior to heading home starting on Monday. Students should be on the lookout for an email later this week with a link to schedule. The same email will also contain information regarding upcoming vaccine clinics. We will have both Johnson and Johnson and Moderna on campus and be able to give 1st shots of Moderna in addition to the 2nd shots from our previous clinics. We STRONGLY encourage all students, faculty and staff to get vaccinated. Any questions or concerns about the vaccine, call or e-mail Health Services and we are happy to provide information.

411 vaccines given today. Still plenty of spots tomorrow. Let's go Bradley!

We still have a lot of vaccine appointments available. Let's get signed up and get vaccinated to end this!!

Let's go back to positive posts. Our COVID numbers are stable to improving this week, which is great considering the county is one of the hottest spots in the state right now. Keep up the great work! In addition to that, after months of us asking, pleading, and generally being annoying, Peoria County Health Department has given us 1000 doses of Moderna vaccine to distribute. We will be holding vaccine clinics Monday and Tuesday next week ON CAMPUS. The second shots will be givent he week of May 10th, right before students head home for the summer. More information will be sent out to the students very shortly. Happy Friday everyone! Have a safe and healthy weekend!

So the first non-positive post of the semester. We have been seeing a significant uptick in cases over the last week. The county had been increasing for about a week prior to that and it seems to have caught up with us. We currently have small groups that test positive and there is no one event that can be pointed to as the reason. We are monitoring it closely but encourage everyone to continue to follow all the mitigation strategies and to call Health Services if you are not feeling well to be tested.
We have also unfortunately received word that we will not be receiving any COVID-19 vaccinations from the health department at this time. We are extraordinarily disappointed with this decision and will continue to lobby for our students. In the meantime we will be sending out messaging for all the locations that they can obtain the vaccine. ALL students, faculty, and staff are eligble staring Monday April 5th.

The spring semester continues to go well on the COVID-19 front. A note on the testing this week, athletics currently has a lot (basically all) of its teams competing and many were on the road this week which led to additional testing following NCAA protocols. That is why our number of tests is higher than usual. Also this week, Peoria County Health Department gave approval to begin vaccinating persons that fall into the 1B+ category. This includes people age 16-64 with comorbid conditions. An e-mail went out to all faculty, staff, and students concerning this. We, unfortunately, do not have access to the vaccine to have vaccination clinics on campus yet. The e-mail did include links on how to schedule an appointment for the vaccine at the health department or local pharmacies if you fit this category. We remain hopeful that by the end of the semester, we will be able to do some of this work on campus.

We just keep rolling along here at Bradley. We had zero (0!) positive tests on campus this week and only one, ONE, positive test off campus. This cold, snowy weather has certainly kept most people indoors and under blankets, but we still had 37 hearty souls who came over for asymptomatic testing on Snow Day Tuesday. We continue to work with the county health department on vaccinations and as soon as they approve 16-64 yo with comorbid conditions, we will begin notifying students who qualify. The county has made it clear, however, that this will NOT be next week as the governor indicated. We are still working our way through the 1A and 1B eligible people. Have a safe, healthy, and great weekend everyone!

More good news from the Hilltop this week! In the past two weeks we have tested over 1000 students, faculty, and staff, focusing on our residential living and Greek housing students. We have only had 3 positives!! State and local numbers also continue to trend in the right direction. We anticipate new guidelines for conduct on campus to be released early next week but really applaud everyone's willingness to take part in our mitigation strategies. We will resume our 250 asymptomatic testing next week. Have a great weekend and stay warm!!!!

The first week was a good one! We are starting the second week with a bang and are constantly amazed at how responsible our Bradley family is. We invited significantly more people to get tested than we had spots for. We wanted to make sure every spot was filled. Well, they filled within 3 hours of the e-mail! We are sorry to those that did not get a spot and encourage you to check this week as there are always cancellations. If this week goes well, we will resume our usual testing next week. Keep up the great work Bradley!