Vaccine Mandates for faculty, staff, and students?

[kaysixteen]

Vax mandates sending Rand-loving morons packing is yet another good reason for such directives.

[mleok]

Thanks Caracal! I usually lurk here and am not a troll.. I am not anti-vax, which is silly really. It's a way to dismiss people who have different opinions. I do support people's rights not to take this PARTICULAR MRna injection for a host of reasons. I am not alone at all.

I mentioned that I wasn't willing to lose my job but I have a tenured colleague who refused the vaccine and may be placed on leave without pay. Exemptions are very difficult to obtain. My update is that some of our students have been de-enrolled for refusing the vaccine mandate but not the large numbers we expected. Most students caved in to the mandate.

You can see that nurses who are medically trained, witnessed the first hand impact of COVID, have quit in large numbers after refusing the vaccine mandates. Do we think they are all misinformed in spite of their medical training? I highly doubt that. In my city, we have hundreds of nurses staging protests against vaccine mandates.
I don't think we can write off the vaccine resisters as ignorant.

Just because you're not a single lemming does not mean that there is a rational, factual basis for your beliefs. What kind of scientific training do you have, and how much of the primary scientific literature on the subject of mRNA vaccines have you read? If not, what do you base your beliefs upon?

I think you overestimate the amount of training in the scientific method that nursues, or even medical doctors receive. In most cases, less than one percent of medical personnel have chosen to quit (or been dismissed) rather than comply with the vaccination mandate, and I think it's an acceptable loss rather than have a hold out endanger the health of their colleagues and their patients. At this point, I have absolutely no patience and empathy for those who are able to get the vaccine, and choose not to, as their misguided choices inflict a continuing burden on society, and increase the severity and duration of this pandemic.

At the end of the day, nobody is putting a gun to your head to get the vaccine, you still have a choice not to get vaccinated, but that choice has consequences, both for you and the people around you. We've long had vaccine mandates for attendance in public schools, and to serve in the military, this is not anything new.

[mleok]

Vax mandates sending Rand-loving morons packing is yet another good reason for such directives.

Many so called libertarians are hypocrites, where is Rand's support of women's reproductive rights?

[Sun_Worshiper]

Vaccine mandates work and they save lives. If people wish not to get the vaccine, then they can request an exemption, quit their jobs, or (depending on how their employer sets up the mandate) opt for frequent testing. The reality is that very few people will refuse the vaccine if the alternative is losing their job, jumping over hurdles to secure an exemption, or having to be bothered with constant testing.

The vaccine mandates are also popular, despite a very loud minority of divas that cry and complain to no end that they are not being permitted to sicken themselves and others.

[downer]

Vax mandates sending Rand-loving morons packing is yet another good reason for such directives.

Many so called libertarians are hypocrites, where is Rand's support of women's reproductive rights?

Rand is a political hack with no real principles. It's hard to find a seasoned politician in the US for whom that isn't true. Still, there are libertarians whose arguments I have some time for.

[spork]

According to the CHE [https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/live-coronavirus-updates/heres-a-list-of-colleges-that-will-require-students-to-be-vaccinated-against-covid-19]

over 700 colleges and universities are mandating vaccinations for this fall 2021 semester. My institution is one of them. Aside from the recent University of Indiana Lawsuit, I am surprised that there has been little controversy about this. Is anyone here from an institution that requires a COVID jab or 'vaccine'? Will any of you be requesting an exemption on the basis of medical or religious grounds? I have been vaccinated but I am angry that this is being made a requirement, especially given the lack of proven effectiveness against the Delta variant. We still have to wear masks indoors too at our institution. What's the point then? Why not just continue teaching remotely until we have an FDA approved vaccine? This is BS!

I recommend that you stop getting your information from Facebook and Fox News and instead read, for example, the CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

[kaysixteen]

Rand Paul is a prolifer, yes, but Rand-loving morons was referring to Ayn Rand, who almost without any question supported abortion rights.  Ayn Rand makes Rand Paul look like a deep thinker and philanthropist.

[Caracal]

There have actually been a pretty small number of people who have quit or been fired rather than get vaccines. I think that's revealing. A piece in the nytimes by Zeynep Tufecki, argued that some of this might be people who made a choice not to get vaccines early on, and got locked into that position by pride, even though they may have started to really doubt the wisdom of that choice. For some of these people, mandates might be a welcome excuse to get a shot.

Even in low uptake areas, there are lots of people who have gotten vaccinated. At some point you have to start looking around and realizing that, actually, those people are not dropping dead and that there are a lot of unvaccinated people in the hospital with covid. There's a limit to ideology or skepticism. Look at how much higher the percentage of people over 80 who have been vaccinated is.

I wonder about our OP. If my employer was requiring me to take some drug that I thought was dangerous and unneeded, I don't think I'd just do it. Of course, I don't have tenure...even so, I don't think I'd do something I actually thought was risky to my health to stay employed. Obviously, some people have to make that choice all the time, but I'd imagine that we'd see higher percentages of people quit in response to mandates if lots of people were really convinced in their anti vaccine beliefs.

[downer]

I'd have thought that a major factor would be whether it would be easy to get a new job that does not require vaccination. Some nurses might be able to get jobs with care work easily, depending on location. It is generally more difficult for K-12 teachers to move from one job to another and it would probably require moving to a different state. Moving jobs in academic is generally hard at the best of times, and would be very difficult now.

I heard of one local high school teacher who decided to take a leave of absence (unpaid) rather than get a COVID vaccine. Whether that teacher will be able to hold out for long remains to be seen. Moving to a state that does not require teachers to get vaccinated may not be an option.

[Puget]

There have actually been a pretty small number of people who have quit or been fired rather than get vaccines. I think that's revealing. A piece in the nytimes by Zeynep Tufecki, argued that some of this might be people who made a choice not to get vaccines early on, and got locked into that position by pride, even though they may have started to really doubt the wisdom of that choice. For some of these people, mandates might be a welcome excuse to get a shot.

I found that an interesting idea too, though I don't know of any hard data behind it. It does make sense with the psychology though, and I think would also apply to people who need an excuse to give other people as to why they got vaccinated, so they don't lose their cred as "loyal" Trumpers. Sort of like teens who are secretly relieved when their parents make them do the right thing.

[apl68]

Although I support vaccine mandates, I really have to push back against some of the invective that I see here against die-hard vaccine hesitants.  I know a few of them, and severely misguided though they may be on this one issue, they aren't much like the nasty caricatures being drawn above.  Some of them are very conscientious and competent at what they do.  Somehow they've gotten hung up on one particular delusion.  I'm at a loss to explain how they've let this happen to them, but I do know that insulting them and writing them off as worthless human beings and hoping they get sick and die isn't going to help anything.

[Sun_Worshiper]

Although I support vaccine mandates, I really have to push back against some of the invective that I see here against die-hard vaccine hesitants.  I know a few of them, and severely misguided though they may be on this one issue, they aren't much like the nasty caricatures being drawn above.  Some of them are very conscientious and competent at what they do.  Somehow they've gotten hung up on one particular delusion.  I'm at a loss to explain how they've let this happen to them, but I do know that insulting them and writing them off as worthless human beings and hoping they get sick and die isn't going to help anything.

Of course the bolded is out of line, but I haven't actually heard anyone say this.

[kaysixteen]

The problem is that this particular delusion risks the lives of others.   It should be unambiguously resisted and condemned.   And I for one have lost essentially all patience with vaccinidiocy, and, yes, with vaccinidiots.

Has anyone a link to a non-firewalled source for the NYT article cited above?

[ciao_yall]

This reminds me of the product life cycle, in which users adopt a new technology or fashion. The first are the innovators, who like to be the latest and greatest. They are followed by the early adopters, who, say, waited in line all night for the latest iPhone. Next are early majority, who watch to see what their early adopter friends do. Late majority comes along when the item is mainstream, followed by laggards who may still be using their flip phones to this day.

Are vaccines the same? First are the people who really want and need it, and don't mind the risks. Some others did a little watching and waiiting. Eventually it got to where you had to be vaccinated to work or go into a business, so it became less convenient to be unvaccinated then go get in line for the shot and maybe not feel so hot for a day or two.

So, who are the remaining laggards? The ones who were late late majority and decided the inconvenience of not being vaxxed outweighed getting vaxxed? Or those, like one of my students, who is still convinced that there is some sort of alien DNA that "they" aren't telling you is in there?

[downer]

I particularly have sympathy with those who have had COVID so have some immunity, and don't want to get an unnecessary vaccine.

Some immediately trot out the claim that the vaccine-immunity is much better than immunity from having had COVID, especially regarding the delta variant. From that I've seen that is at least debatable by reasonable people. Even if it is true, those who have had COVID have some immunity. It seems the main reason for not allowing that exception is that it would be big administrative problem. Maybe trying to shame vaccine-refusers is an effective method, but it is high-stakes method, because if it turns out that those defending the efficacy of the vaccine are overconfident about its value, it will strongly undermine any future attempts by public health officials to issue vaccines.

Younger Americans (under 50) are less trusting of their doctors than older Americans. Minorities are less trusting. If distrust of medicine increases, especially among the young, the future could hold a lot of problems with infectious diseases.