This Virginia university is serious about its COVID-19 protocols.

Schools all across the country are requiring COVID-19 vaccinations for the fall semester, and one Virginia school is proving that the mandates are no joke. With the fall semester just coming to a start, the University of Virginia (UVA) in Charlottesville has disenrolled 238 students for not complying with their vaccine mandate. 

UVA's current vaccination policy states that "all students who live, learn, or work in person at the university" must be fully vaccinated. According to the school's Twitter post, about 96% of students confirmed they were fully vaccinated as of August 18. However, 1.3% of students have claimed religious or medical exemptions, but have agreed to comply with COVID-19 precautions such as wearing masks and weekly mandatory testings.

The University revealed that 238 students did not comply with the university's protocols and were disenrolled. This means these students are not eligible to take courses at the university.

According to university contacts, unvaccinated students were given multiple reminders between May 20 and July 1 in order to prevent disenrollment prior to the fall semester. 

"Students out of compliance received multiple emails, calls, text messages and—in some cases—calls to their parents," said UVA spokesperson Brian Coy. "Our numbers show that our students responded to this. This means we can have the kind of in-person semester where people can engage in normal ways."

Coy also stated that out of the 238 students that were disenrolled, only 49 of them were actually enrolled in classes for the fall semester. According to him, the remaining 189 students may not have been planning to return to UVA grounds this fall. The students who were disenrolled but still plan on attending classes have one week to update their vaccine status. If they comply, these students may return for the upcoming semester.

At a town hall held earlier this month, University of Virginia President Jim Ryan said, "We are in a much better and much different position than we were last year, primarily because of the vaccines and the extraordinarily high vaccination rate in our community," Ryan said. "This means we can return in person to classes, activities, sporting events and research labs as we have been planning to do in the fall semester, with the residential experiences that are at the heart of this university."

The Virginia school, which boasts 18,000 undergraduate students and 9,000 graduate students, is expected to begin classes on August 24. First-year students have already started to arrive on the campus grounds to start their semester.

How do you feel about vaccine mandates for students attending school? Let us know in the comments!