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Stanford
COVID-19 Health Alerts

University’s COVID-19 travel policy updated

Categories: Policies, Travel

The State of California continues to discourage non-essential travel amid the pandemic. For those who do travel, Stanford has updated its university travel policy to again allow faculty, staff and postdoctoral scholars who travel more than 150 miles from Santa Clara County or San Mateo County to return to the Stanford main campus or Stanford Redwood City campus after:

  • Receiving a negative COVID-19 test 5 or more days after their arrival back, or
  • 10 days without a COVID-19 test.

Students who arrive on campus for the spring quarter, or who otherwise arrive from travel, should participate in Stanford’s regular COVID-19 testing regimen for students, which includes required twice-weekly testing. (All undergraduates also will have a period of restricted activity at the beginning of the spring quarter.)

Health Check, the university’s platform for daily self-reporting of health status for those who are on site, has been modified to reflect the updated university policy. The travel policy currently applies to both vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals; in the coming weeks the university will be looking more closely at how vaccination status interacts with campus COVID-19 safeguards. 

In addition, an updated matrix outlines conditions for university-sponsored travel. Stanford is currently in the “Restricted Travel” category.  (Note that the university travel restart is distinct from campus recovery phases.)

More information about travel is available at https://healthalerts.stanford.edu/covid-19/travelers/.