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A COVID-19 vaccination clinic at California State University, Long Beach. Research shows that about 7. 4% of schools still require all students to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
Patrick T. Fallon/AFP/Getty Images
At the beginning of the 2021-2022 educational year, many U. S. schools and universities will be able to do so. The U. S. government demanded the COVID-19 vaccine for students, which was announced last December and is gradually available to the public.
Two years later, few institutions still impose mandatory vaccination. According to a recent American College Health Association survey of 311 institutions, 7. 4% continue to require vaccination for all students. Another 10. 7% require that certain subgroups, such as resident students, be vaccinated. vaccinated against the coronavirus.
Similarly, No College Mandates, an advocacy organization that opposes COVID-19 vaccine requirements, has 93 schools that continue to have some sort of requirement, or 7. 7% of the 1,211 establishments whose policies they have revised. These policies run the gamut, from requiring academics to get a “primary” vaccine, i. e. a Johnson shot.
Goucher College, a liberal arts school of about 2,000 scholars located in Towson, Maryland, falls into the first category. Students will need to have at least one COVID-19 vaccine to attend, workers are not required to be vaccinated against the virus at all.
“Our campus is residential and we have long demanded safe vaccinations to ensure we are doing everything we can to protect the fitness and well-being of our student population,” said Jean Perez, Goucher’s director of student health and wellness. It’s anything small we can do that can have a big impact on public health. “
Last year, the school had stricter requirements, requiring students to get bivalent reinforcement under Centers for Disease Control and Prevention rules. But recently, the establishment has simplified things by requiring only the original vaccine.
Goucher also maintains an isolation policy requiring students living on campus who contract COVID-19 to stay home or stay in isolation housing on campus. According to the ACHA survey, only a small number of schools continue to offer isolation. housing for academics; 11. 4% of respondents offer it to a student in poor health, while 3. 6% offer it to roommates of a student in poor health. Another 12. 3% only offer it to a student in poor health. roommate of an angry student if he “is at higher risk for severe illness from COVID-19. “
According to the ACHA survey, the most common solution is also the most rudimentary: 38% of institutions ask students with health issues with COVID-19 to isolate themselves in their dorm room and give their roommates the opportunity to find transitional housing on their own.
“Every school has a very different set of circumstances, so we are surprised that campuses are still adopting a wide variety of approaches to managing COVID,” said Claudia Trevor-Wright, ACHA’s director of college COVID-19 vaccine allocation (CoVAC). Initiative.
Still, he noted that protections are especially in place now, as schools approach the upcoming fall semester with “far fewer resources for community COVID knowledge collection and tracking, less to no function for free COVID testing. “
Many campuses still offer COVID-19 prevention resources that have become harder to access elsewhere. A quarter of schools surveyed as part of the ACHA survey said they advised students to wear masks in the gym and would provide them for free; A smaller number, 17. 7 percent, gave the same advice for their counseling centers. Nearly three-quarters of campuses will offer some form of on-site testing. Of the facilities that will offer immediate testing, 67. 1 said the tests were free.
Many students will also be able to get vaccinated on campus, and more than a portion of respondents said vaccines could be received on campus, either through the fitness center or a third-party provider, such as a local pharmacy. .
Most schools that still have vaccination mandates in place look a lot like Goucher: small, personal liberal arts institutions, in states governed by Democrats.
“Public establishments are subject to the directives of their State. Private establishments have a little more flexibility in how they distribute their space. Where there is flexibility, you will see a reflection of the values and philosophy of the network,” Trevor-Wright said, noting that at least one campus maintained its mandate because academics and other network members requested it.
But all facilities that require vaccines are small or private; Montclair State University, a New Jersey public studies university with more than 21,000 students, maintains a vaccination mandate, as does Rutgers University, the state’s flagship public university.
The state of Montclair requires that all students living on campus have received the number one vaccine. Rutgers requires all students to get at least one number one dose; Reminders used to be needed, but now only the workers’ health and protection agency wants to receive the extra dose.
Andrew Mees, a spokesman for Montclair State, said that while Montclair doesn’t look like Goucher, it has been easy to enforce the public protections he finds most productive for his students.
“All establishments have faced similar demanding situations during the pandemic, whether public or private. Montclair’s identity and project is to be a public service university. We are a federally designated Hispanic institution and the majority of our students are first generation and underrepresented. minority groups,” Mees wrote in an email. The effects of the pandemic have not been lightly distributed among our population. We know that other low-income people and other people of color have been disproportionately affected. We can help our students succeed in school and after the pandemic.
Like many universities, Montclair State has faced a backlash over its original mandate, with one student launching a petition that garnered more than 2,000 signatures, calling on the establishment to rescind that requirement. At the time, many conflicting parties to the mandates argued that the vaccine, which was only legal for emergency use in the first place, meant it was too experimental to be needed.
The cases are different today; Many COVID-19 vaccines have been completely legal through the Food and Drug Administration, most schools have returned to in-person learning, and fears about the pandemic have largely diminished, although cases in many states lately are trending upward.
According to Mees, there have been no negative reactions to Montclair State’s continuation of its vaccination mandate during the 2023-2024 school year. Perez also said he is not aware that Goucher is facing a backlash.
But conflicting parties, such as No College Mandates, still oppose those requirements. Some of its members argue that the possible side effects, such as an increased threat of myocarditis, a central disease, are too severe to warrant mandatory vaccination. for other people who have COVID than for other people who received the vaccine, the researchers found. )
“Serious side effects that can lead to long-term physical challenge are incredibly rare after vaccination in addition to the COVID-19 vaccine,” according to the CDC. The effects of COVID-19 vaccination outweigh the known and potential risks. “
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