The California State University system announced on Wednesday that they anticipate the fall 2021 semester will be held in-person across the 23 campuses, a decision that will impact nearly 500,000 students and 53,000 faculty and staff members.

Last spring, CSUN President Dianne F. Harrison announced that in-person instruction would not return following spring break. Since that decision on March 11, CSUN has been mostly virtual, with an exception for some in-person instruction.

Harrison announced on Nov. 24 that CSUN would return to a fully-online format for the remainder of the semester, citing “an abundance of caution” behind the decision following a surge in COVID-19 cases across California.

New CSU students have until Dec. 15 to enroll in the fall 2021 semester. This deadline was extended from its previous Dec. 4 date to accommodate more students during the pandemic.

“It’s critical that we provide as much advance notice as possible to students and their families, as we have done previously in announcing our moves toward primarily virtual instruction,” CSU Chancellor Timothy P. White said. “While we are currently going through a very difficult surge in the pandemic, there is light at the end of the tunnel with the promising progress on vaccines.”

Yesterday, the first COVID-19 vaccine was administered in a United Kingdom hospital. California is expected to receive 327,000 doses of the vaccine as early as mid-December according to California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

On Monday, Newsom said California could receive an additional two million doses from Pfizer and Moderna by late December.

As of Wednesday, approximately 1.3 million people in California have tested positive for the virus and there has been 20,047 coronavirus-related deaths, the second most of any state following Texas, which has 22,808 deaths according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CSU has not decided whether courses for the summer 2021 term will take place in-person.