This message was sent to all Duke University faculty, staff, and students

July 2, 2021

Dear Faculty, Staff, and Students,

Effective August 9, 2021, the Duke Travel Suspension due to COVID-19 will no longer apply to domestic travel. Faculty, staff, and students who are fully-vaccinated will once again be allowed to travel with Duke support to U.S. states, territories, and territorial waters. Also, domestic travelers will no longer need to enter their travel into the Duke Travel Registry.

While international travel will be more complex given the pandemic and resulting entry requirements/restrictions, travel to destinations that do not appear on Duke’s Restricted Regions List can once again proceed for individuals who are fully vaccinated with the usual budgetary and departmental/school approvals.

The revised RRL, to be published on August 9, will include locations that Duke restricts for safety and security reasons, as well as countries where the travel suspension due to COVID-19 will continue to be in place.  For the latter, the policies and procedures that faculty, staff and students have followed for the last year to request an exemption from their “Top-Level Manager” (and if applicable Duke’s GTAC CV19 Travel Sub-committee) for “essential travel” to these destinations will remain in effect. Additionally, all travelers – whether domestic or international and regardless of whether travel is to a COVID-19 suspended destination or not – must be fully vaccinated or have an approved medical or religious exemption on file with Duke.

For RRL destinations restricted due to safety and security reasons other than COVID-19, students can seek waivers of the restrictions through Duke’s long-standing petition and waiver/release processes specified in Duke’s Global Travel Policy. Faculty, staff and graduate students are not restricted from traveling to these areas.

We encourage you to visit travel.duke.edu and sign up to receive updates on Duke’s Travel Policy to learn more and to receive alerts as to when this information is available online.

While the news is good at Duke, the pandemic is not over yet. All travelers should continue to follow the guidance of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and its equivalents at their international destinations to promote a safe environment for hosts as well as our students, faculty and staff not only in Durham but any location. Vaccination rates worldwide vary significantly from country to country, and the emergence of new and more transmittable variants of COVID-19 means we must continue to practice public health protocols.

Sally Kornbluth,
Provost and Jo Rae Wright University Professor

Kyle Cavanaugh,
Vice President, Administration