Vaccination nation

[Hegemony]

Downer asked why colleges would require boosters. I think it's clear that it's because those provide significantly better protection against omicron. After all, schools and universities require a variety of other immunizations. However low the COVID fatality rate for college-age students, it is not zero, so it makes sense to make students as protected as vaccination can make them.

[hmaria1609]

Earlier today, Mayor Muriel Bowser has reinstated the indoor mask mandate for DC:
https://wtop.com/dc/2021/12/bowser-reinstates-indoor-mask-mandate-for-dc/
Scroll past ad breaks to read full article. Posted on WTOP Radio 12/20/21

[downer]

Downer asked why colleges would require boosters. I think it's clear that it's because those provide significantly better protection against omicron. After all, schools and universities require a variety of other immunizations. However low the COVID fatality rate for college-age students, it is not zero, so it makes sense to make students as protected as vaccination can make them.

If the reason is not to prevent infection of other students, staff and faculty, and the functioning of the college, then the college is being highly paternalistic.

Could a college ever be sued by students for not taking enough measures to protect them from an infectious disease that can cause great harm?

[Puget]

Downer asked why colleges would require boosters. I think it's clear that it's because those provide significantly better protection against omicron. After all, schools and universities require a variety of other immunizations. However low the COVID fatality rate for college-age students, it is not zero, so it makes sense to make students as protected as vaccination can make them.

If the reason is not to prevent infection of other students, staff and faculty, and the functioning of the college, then the college is being highly paternalistic.

Could a college ever be sued by students for not taking enough measures to protect them from an infectious disease that can cause great harm?

I don't think anyone is saying it isn't for those reasons, just that it *also* protects the students themselves.
I'm sure they could be sued. Whether or not that would be successful is another question, but in other instances (hazing deaths etc.) courts have recognized a special obligation of colleges to protect the health and welfare of their students.

[Hegemony]

If the reason is not to prevent infection of other students, staff and faculty, and the functioning of the college, then the college is being highly paternalistic.

Colleges routinely require meningitis vaccines, even though meningitis is much less contagious than Omicron. It does kill around 10% of the people who contract it. 

As for paternalism, yes, colleges are often seen as in loco parentis.

[downer]

As for paternalism, yes, colleges are often seen as in loco parentis.

There are limits to this. A major preventable health problem in the US is obesity, yet I've never seen a college do much, or indeed anything, to target that problem in students. The risk of COVID to health for 18-22 year olds is pretty low. The far larger worry is that they will pass it on to older or frail family members. But colleges are not in loco parentis of family members.

Colleges are not in loco parentis for faculty or staff.

[ergative]

My UG institution required that students either pass a physical fitness test or else take a certain number of credit hours of PE. Also, lots of colleges advertise healthy options in the dining halls.

They're not forcing students to go to regular weigh-ins or anything, but they certainly aren't ignoring obesity as a student health concern.

[mahagonny]

Trouble brewing

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/conservative-website-the-daily-wire-sues-biden-admin-calls-osha-enforced-employer-vaccine-mandate-unconstitutional/ar-AAQkak6

[Sun_Worshiper]

I don't think people have an appreciation for how ugly it is going to be in the next couple of months: We should be ready to see 1m cases per day in the US. On the up-side, the death rate should be lower than in earlier waves, given higher immunity from vaccines and earlier infections, but we'll still probably be looking at 3000-to-5000 deaths per day, plus the excess deaths that don't make it into official stats.

Boosters are obviously the best way out of this, but so far less than 20% of Americans have them and that will be a tough number to budge up, given vaccine skepticism and general apathy from the public.

[secundem_artem]

Here in Artem State, Delta remains the most common variant, although Omicron has been found.

I had a conversation with a friend who has an anti-vax co-worker at his job.  Said co-worker came down the Covid a couple of weeks ago.  He was flat on his back for 3 days, had a number of unpleasant effects and now, a couple of weeks later, still has shortness of breath.

And the take home point is that since this dude did not end up in the hospital, this would be considered a mild case.

If you are still waiting to see if the vaccine is safe and effective, please understand this - that means you are in the control group.

[FishProf]

A friend of MrsFishProf will be visiting the area over Christmas.  She and her latest beau are unvaccinated and were VERY upset that we wouldn't have them over.  She said "It's our choice whether to get vaccinated or not!"  to which I replied "and it is OUR choice whether to expose our family to that; and we choose not".

When pressed as to WHY they didn't choose to get vaccinated, they said "because of all the people getting sick from the vaccine".  When I pushed for examples, it turned out she was referring to people having the expected immune response to the vaccine, as if that were a cause for concern. 

It works, as advertised, and you are treating a feature as if it were a fatal bug.

[secundem_artem]

Sarah Palin says she'll get Covid vaccine 'over my dead body'

Challenge accepted!

Counties that voted for Trump have disproportionately lower vax rates & higher death rates.

Darwin at work.

[mamselle]

A friend of MrsFishProf will be visiting the area over Christmas.  She and her latest beau are unvaccinated and were VERY upset that we wouldn't have them over.  She said "It's our choice whether to get vaccinated or not!"  to which I replied "and it is OUR choice whether to expose our family to that; and we choose not".

When pressed as to WHY they didn't choose to get vaccinated, they said "because of all the people getting sick from the vaccine".  When I pushed for examples, it turned out she was referring to people having the expected immune response to the vaccine, as if that were a cause for concern. 

It works, as advertised, and you are treating a feature as if it were a fatal bug.

Are they masking, at least?

If not, they definitely won't be going to these places:

   https://www.boston.com/news/coronavirus/2021/12/21/massachusetts-mask-advisory/

besides having already opted out of these:

      https://www.wcvb.com/article/greater-boston-city-leaders-vaccine-requirement-intent-dec-20-2021/38569541

M.

[dismalist]

...

Counties that voted for Trump have disproportionately lower vax rates & higher death rates.

Darwin at work.

If I understand correctly, the county averages are multiplied by county population. This biases standard errors, which are not reported, downwards.

Proper weighted regression would use population size to correct the variance.

Little need to get technical: Look at the scatter plots. The high Trump voting counties have death rates all over the map. That's a clue that the statistical analysis is pure genius, lucky, or wrong. :-)

[mahagonny]

...

Counties that voted for Trump have disproportionately lower vax rates & higher death rates.

Darwin at work.

If I understand correctly, the county averages are multiplied by county population. This biases standard errors, which are not reported, downwards.

Proper weighted regression would use population size to correct the variance.

Little need to get technical: Look at the scatter plots. The high Trump voting counties have death rates all over the map. That's a clue that the statistical analysis is pure genius, lucky, or wrong. :-)

NPR is infallible, I thought....;-)