Baylor’s COVID initiative
Baylor University — Goal 2 Initiative Baylor’s COVID initiative
Given Baylor’s position within the local community of Waco, it began a multi-pronged strategy to drive COVID awareness and vaccinations within the local community. As part of this effort, Baylor created an open and transparent COVID dashboard to detail real-time information on COVID cases and vaccination rates (students & employees), transformed into a mass testing and vaccination site for the community, using its own facilities to administer tests and vaccines, and built its own testing lab to process PCR exams to drive 100% testing of the student body each week during Spring 2020. As a result, Baylor has administered over 10,000 vaccines and maintains an excellent vaccination rate (90% of faculty, 84% of staff, and 75% of students are vaccinated) in a city where only 50% of the 12+ population is vaccinated.
Initiative Differentiators
Baylor co-leads the City of Waco COVID Strategic Communications workgroup at the request of the City of Waco, where the mayor asked the group to create a website about testing, science of COVID, and vaccination information- leading to the creation of the COVID dashboard and covidwaco.com, the city’s portal for all Covid information. Additionally, in an effort to more actively push vaccination rates and testing climate, Baylor built its own lab in partnership with a 3rd party to process PCR tests; this multi-million lab is one of the largest of its kind owned by a university with no affiliated medical school.
Key Interventions and Milestones
The broader COVID effort has led to defined impact including free testing and vaccines for 23,000 students, faculty, and staff, which is significant when considering the size of Waco’s population (136,000 people in 2019). Baylor has administered over 10,000 vaccines and maintains an excellent vaccination rate (90% of faculty, 84% of staff, and 75% of students are vaccinated) in a city where only 50% of the 12+ population is vaccinated.
