Anonymous wrote:Getting a booster for Covid is like getting 2020's flu shot. Do you really think it will do any good?

Colleges are still requiring a booster, so my kid got one, but it was a total waste, completely worthless, and my kid was sick in bed for two days.

My kid had already gotten Covid in January, so the booster was absolutely needless and senseless. But the U required it, so he got it.

I’m sorry to hear that. I am hopeful that more parents will make their voices heard and stand up against these useless mandates. This needs to change.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There were kids forced out mid-semester this past spring.

Covid vax and booster mandates violate basic medical ethics. Not to mention are coercive, which is prohibited under EUA.

Again, the students who left chose to leave because they chose not to take the vaccine. I am not pretending that is an easy choice, but it is still an available choice. They were not forced to stay and accept a shot.

Colleges can and do change all kinds of policies in the midst of students' careers. Vaccine requirements do get added (meningitis, as other have noted, is a more recent one at many schools); definitions of academic dishonesty get rewritten and differently enforced; political and social disputes provoke governance shifts; tuition gets increased; majors and even entire departments get discontinued. Students are always free to go at any point when they do not like those changes.

It is coercion, which is prohibited for EUA products. (Booster is still EUA.)

And still contrary to medical ethics.

Blah blah blah. More hot air. It’s a tiny little needle. Your precious adult child snowflakes can handle it, I promise.

So typical of how the vaccine pushers have responded throughout this pandemic. You can’t actually refute any of the facts that the PP presents (that the booster is still EUA) and that requiring it is unethical, so you resort to calling people ‘snowflakes’ and make disparaging comments.

The hot air has all been coming from Fauci and the rest, who make grand proclamations without providing the data to back up their claims. That is not how science works at all.

Please provide a link for a study showing that current boosters make a difference against these new variants in young adults age 16-25. You won’t because no such study exists.

That is why it is unethical to mandate a booster for college students. Not an ounce of data to support that nonsense.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The big deal is that there is no benefit for OP's kid, w/two shots and two covid infections. Only risk. Forcing it is unethical. There is no basis.

(See eg https://www.fda.gov/media/159007/download #38)

I agree (I'm not the pp you quoted, but I'm the first respondent at 16:41 yesterday.)
But schools made their position on the vaccine known before decision day (May 1.) As a pp noted, a few (like Rice and Vanderbilt) have actually walked back their requirement for a booster (I'm not aware of any schools that did NOT have a booster requirement on May 1, but have since mandated it.)

If it was important to someone to have a choice to not get the booster, they could have applied to many other schools that not only do not require the booster, but do not require the vaccine at all.

Yes! Colleges can set their requirements. You can choose not to attend if you don't want to follow it. Colleges have had vaccination reqs for decades. Some even require Meningitis B vax, others don't. My kid can't attend most universities without the whole slew of vaccinations, similar to what was required in K-12 as well. If you are a Health sciences major, you may have even more reqs. My DC is employed at a company involved in the Healthcare industry, and guess what, since they have to travel to "healthcare sites", they are required to get a TB test done (and follow up with treatment I'd assume if they happen to test positive). It's part of the job reqs. Don't like it, they can find another job. Similarly they are required to be up to date on all other vaccines, including covid and a booster. I for one would prefer anyone I might encounter in healthcare setting to be fully vaxed for all diseases.

+1 from college faculty. Families who don't work in higher ed, use your imagination about the human petri dish that is a college campus. Now multiply that by 100, stop washing your hands, and share your beverage with the 6 nearest people around you, even if you've never met them before. Even before covid, college students were sick *constantly*. Anything you can immunize against, do it, and any healthy behaviors you can promote (including basic things like nutrition and sleep), do it.

As PPs have said, families of rising college freshmen are completely free to decline admissions offers at any time from schools with whose policies (of any kind) they disagree. And absolute truth to tell, as inconvenient or expensive or disappointing or frustrating or bait-and-switch or wasteful as it might seem, older students are also completely free to take a gap year or transfer out if they don't want their school's covid mandates. No one is forcibly trapped in college.

What subject do you teach in college?

Yes, college campuses are Petri dishes. However, the Covid vaccine and the Covid booster do NOT prevent transmit on of Covid. We have known that for a long time now.

How does mandating a Covid vaccine or booster help prevent the spread of Covid? It does not.

This isn't true. Vaccines and boosters reduce the spread of Covid 19.


One study of households in Scotland found that vaccination reduces transmission by 40-50% among household members.

https://www.bmj.com/content/376/bmj.o298

Yes, it does not reduce the transmission to 0% but it greatly reduces it. If everyone had just gotten vaxed initially, covid would not have been allowed to mutate as much and we would be in a different place right now. Measles used to be a thing of the past in the USA (and much of the world), but as more people don't vax their kids, we have seen more outbreaks in the past 15 years. Same with Whooping cough---know a fully vaxed teen that had a nasty case 8 years ago when it went rampant in our community, not to mention how dangerous it was to any of the younger kids who got it who were not yet old enough to be fully vaxed against it.
Herd immunity is a real thing, despite some people not wanting to believe in science.

Hilarious. If you (and the CDC/FDA) beloved in science, they would acknowledge and honor natural immunity, as they do in other parts of the world.

And, even your hero Fauci quit pushing the idea of hers immunity about a year and a half ago.

More nonsense. Grow up.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There were kids forced out mid-semester this past spring.

Covid vax and booster mandates violate basic medical ethics. Not to mention are coercive, which is prohibited under EUA.

Again, the students who left chose to leave because they chose not to take the vaccine. I am not pretending that is an easy choice, but it is still an available choice. They were not forced to stay and accept a shot.

Colleges can and do change all kinds of policies in the midst of students' careers. Vaccine requirements do get added (meningitis, as other have noted, is a more recent one at many schools); definitions of academic dishonesty get rewritten and differently enforced; political and social disputes provoke governance shifts; tuition gets increased; majors and even entire departments get discontinued. Students are always free to go at any point when they do not like those changes.

It is coercion, which is prohibited for EUA products. (Booster is still EUA.)

And still contrary to medical ethics.

Blah blah blah. More hot air. It’s a tiny little needle. Your precious adult child snowflakes can handle it, I promise.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one needs a got dam booster at this point. The virus has mutated into just another cold. Look at the way cases are rising but hospitalizations and deaths are staying flat. That's because it's not a deadly virus anymore for the vast majority of people and certainly not for college students. These schools need to stop being insane.

Stop. Spreading. Lies.

OP, your kid gets the booster or they stay home. It’s very simple.

Good grief, try reading and doing some research, will ya?

The boosters are worthless at this point. They protect you from older variants of Covid, but won't keep newer variants away. If you want to get boosted weekly, find, do it. But don't make me get a vaccine that I don't need and won't do any good in protecting me from the current variants of Covid. I'm vaccinated, and that's all I need.

Listen to Paul Offit, a longtime vaccine expert and proponent of most vaccines, if you don't believe me.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/11/29/booster-shots-universal-opinion/

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also WashU does not require a booster. Vandy and Rice no longer have vax mandates.

Hope we see more of this. There is no good reason to require a booster, or really a vax at this point. Especially for teens/young adults. A vax or booster mandate is unnecessary and unethical.

These schools are doing the right thing.

According to Jen Psaki (she's so eloquent!) "mandates work." You know, if you threaten to destroy someone's life unless they do what you say--and you actually have the power to destroy their life--there is a high likelihood they will comply. Funny how "it works" that way!

You whiners are SO damn dramatic. If you don’t want to follow their requirements, don’t use their services.

Anonymous wrote:The big deal is that there is no benefit for OP's kid, w/two shots and two covid infections. Only risk. Forcing it is unethical. There is no basis.

(See eg https://www.fda.gov/media/159007/download #38)

Yawn. Be a grownup, get the shot and stop whining. Or, you know, switch to community college. If all else fails, McDonalds is always hiring.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The big deal is that there is no benefit for OP's kid, w/two shots and two covid infections. Only risk. Forcing it is unethical. There is no basis.

(See eg https://www.fda.gov/media/159007/download #38)

I agree (I'm not the pp you quoted, but I'm the first respondent at 16:41 yesterday.)
But schools made their position on the vaccine known before decision day (May 1.) As a pp noted, a few (like Rice and Vanderbilt) have actually walked back their requirement for a booster (I'm not aware of any schools that did NOT have a booster requirement on May 1, but have since mandated it.)

If it was important to someone to have a choice to not get the booster, they could have applied to many other schools that not only do not require the booster, but do not require the vaccine at all.

Yes! Colleges can set their requirements. You can choose not to attend if you don't want to follow it. Colleges have had vaccination reqs for decades. Some even require Meningitis B vax, others don't. My kid can't attend most universities without the whole slew of vaccinations, similar to what was required in K-12 as well. If you are a Health sciences major, you may have even more reqs. My DC is employed at a company involved in the Healthcare industry, and guess what, since they have to travel to "healthcare sites", they are required to get a TB test done (and follow up with treatment I'd assume if they happen to test positive). It's part of the job reqs. Don't like it, they can find another job. Similarly they are required to be up to date on all other vaccines, including covid and a booster. I for one would prefer anyone I might encounter in healthcare setting to be fully vaxed for all diseases.

+1 from college faculty. Families who don't work in higher ed, use your imagination about the human petri dish that is a college campus. Now multiply that by 100, stop washing your hands, and share your beverage with the 6 nearest people around you, even if you've never met them before. Even before covid, college students were sick *constantly*. Anything you can immunize against, do it, and any healthy behaviors you can promote (including basic things like nutrition and sleep), do it.

As PPs have said, families of rising college freshmen are completely free to decline admissions offers at any time from schools with whose policies (of any kind) they disagree. And absolute truth to tell, as inconvenient or expensive or disappointing or frustrating or bait-and-switch or wasteful as it might seem, older students are also completely free to take a gap year or transfer out if they don't want their school's covid mandates. No one is forcibly trapped in college.

What subject do you teach in college?

Yes, college campuses are Petri dishes. However, the Covid vaccine and the Covid booster do NOT prevent transmit on of Covid. We have known that for a long time now.

How does mandating a Covid vaccine or booster help prevent the spread of Covid? It does not.

This isn't true. Vaccines and boosters reduce the spread of Covid 19.


One study of households in Scotland found that vaccination reduces transmission by 40-50% among household members.

https://www.bmj.com/content/376/bmj.o298

Yes, it does not reduce the transmission to 0% but it greatly reduces it. If everyone had just gotten vaxed initially, covid would not have been allowed to mutate as much and we would be in a different place right now. Measles used to be a thing of the past in the USA (and much of the world), but as more people don't vax their kids, we have seen more outbreaks in the past 15 years. Same with Whooping cough---know a fully vaxed teen that had a nasty case 8 years ago when it went rampant in our community, not to mention how dangerous it was to any of the younger kids who got it who were not yet old enough to be fully vaxed against it.
Herd immunity is a real thing, despite some people not wanting to believe in science.

Whooping cough has some interesting parallels to mRNA vax in that pertussis is also a subunit vaccine, where the vaccine seeks to provoke immunity to only a portion of the organism. (The whole-cell pertussis vax caused too many adverse events and had to be pulled.) The current pertussis vaccine provokes immunity to PRN. Pertussis then evolved around immunity to PRN, that is, PRN-deficient strains now dominate circulating pertussis even, or perhaps especially, among vaccinated individuals. See, e.g. Pertactin-Deficient Bordetella pertussis, Vaccine-Driven Evolution, and Reemergence of Pertussis https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8153889/

You obviously know much more than me about this. But I do know that medical staff are now encouraging the Pertussis vax every 5 years in 20 somethings. My DC got the booster last year at 21 (10 years after the last dose as a kid/teen). Normally DTP (diphtheria, tetnus and pertussis) are supposed to be done every 10 years, if you didn't need a booster before that for Tetnus. But the nurse/dr told my DC that they recommend every 5 years because 20 somethings will start to have friends who are having kids and it's incredibly important to make sure you don't give whooping cough to a child not fully protected yet (and it also protects the 20 something). As I stated, our area has had a few whooping cough outbreaks due to non-vaxers in the past 8 years, so they are more alert to issues than many areas may be.

Yer drinkin the kool-aid, hon.

Whooping cough immunity from the vaccine wears off in almost everyone, so you can't blame "non-vaxers" for outbreaks. WC outbreaks happen every year, all over the U.S. They are small, but people get hysterical about them.

Recent research has show that immunity from tetanus vaccines lasts 20 years or more in some individuals. Getting immunized for tetanus every five years is insanity. It might make sense to get immunized more often for pertussis, but there's no individual pertussis vaccine that I know of.

Anonymous wrote:No one needs a got dam booster at this point. The virus has mutated into just another cold. Look at the way cases are rising but hospitalizations and deaths are staying flat. That's because it's not a deadly virus anymore for the vast majority of people and certainly not for college students. These schools need to stop being insane.

Stop. Spreading. Lies.

OP, your kid gets the booster or they stay home. It’s very simple.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The big deal is that there is no benefit for OP's kid, w/two shots and two covid infections. Only risk. Forcing it is unethical. There is no basis.

(See eg https://www.fda.gov/media/159007/download #38)

I agree (I'm not the pp you quoted, but I'm the first respondent at 16:41 yesterday.)
But schools made their position on the vaccine known before decision day (May 1.) As a pp noted, a few (like Rice and Vanderbilt) have actually walked back their requirement for a booster (I'm not aware of any schools that did NOT have a booster requirement on May 1, but have since mandated it.)

If it was important to someone to have a choice to not get the booster, they could have applied to many other schools that not only do not require the booster, but do not require the vaccine at all.

Yes! Colleges can set their requirements. You can choose not to attend if you don't want to follow it. Colleges have had vaccination reqs for decades. Some even require Meningitis B vax, others don't. My kid can't attend most universities without the whole slew of vaccinations, similar to what was required in K-12 as well. If you are a Health sciences major, you may have even more reqs. My DC is employed at a company involved in the Healthcare industry, and guess what, since they have to travel to "healthcare sites", they are required to get a TB test done (and follow up with treatment I'd assume if they happen to test positive). It's part of the job reqs. Don't like it, they can find another job. Similarly they are required to be up to date on all other vaccines, including covid and a booster. I for one would prefer anyone I might encounter in healthcare setting to be fully vaxed for all diseases.

+1 from college faculty. Families who don't work in higher ed, use your imagination about the human petri dish that is a college campus. Now multiply that by 100, stop washing your hands, and share your beverage with the 6 nearest people around you, even if you've never met them before. Even before covid, college students were sick *constantly*. Anything you can immunize against, do it, and any healthy behaviors you can promote (including basic things like nutrition and sleep), do it.

As PPs have said, families of rising college freshmen are completely free to decline admissions offers at any time from schools with whose policies (of any kind) they disagree. And absolute truth to tell, as inconvenient or expensive or disappointing or frustrating or bait-and-switch or wasteful as it might seem, older students are also completely free to take a gap year or transfer out if they don't want their school's covid mandates. No one is forcibly trapped in college.

+1 My student lived in close quarters in a residence hall all year. Ate in the dining hall multiple times a day. Got his booster just prior to Thanksgiving. He managed to not get Covid during the December surge as well as the rest of the year. All the protocols in place were helpful, including the vax requirements IMO.

And imagine what it might have been like had every single student at your kid's college gotten a booster back in Nov/early Dec (or as soon as eligible) Science says the surge would not have been as bad---most people I know who got covid during Dec/Jan were not boosted.

Everyone I know who got covid during Dec/Jan was boosted, including four members of my own family. Boosters are worthless at preventing the spread of covid.

Getting a booster for Covid is like getting 2020's flu shot. Do you really think it will do any good?

Colleges are still requiring a booster, so my kid got one, but it was a total waste, completely worthless, and my kid was sick in bed for two days.

My kid had already gotten Covid in January, so the booster was absolutely needless and senseless. But the U required it, so he got it.

Anonymous wrote:From inside the higher-ed world: Schools that initiated covid vaccination requirements (of whatever kind) often also tended to be schools with more robust surveillance programs and more detailed data reporting. My individual no-policy institution had a stunningly low percentage of covid cases officially listed in comparison to other institutions within a radius of a few miles in the same metro area (upper Midwest). The difference wasn't less covid. The difference was less testing. So attempting to draw larger conclusions about college spread without much more nuanced analysis is going to be a losing errand.

There has always been very strong incentive among college students not to test if they didn't absolutely have to. Heck, there is strong incentive in society in general right now not to test if you don't absolutely have to. My family personally tests a lot, but I know others don't, and I know my students don't, which is why I have to mask to teach. If one student gets covid, they take a few days out or have to listen on Zoom. If I get covid, the _whole class_ is stuck with that arrangement. I figure they'd rather have me there in real life and be there themselves in real life, even if I'm wearing a mask at the time.

Yeah, my DC attended a midwest univ during covid. Fall of 2020 there was no mandatory testing, just if you had contact or felt ill. 8K undergrads (probably only 6.5-7K actually on/near campus that fall), and at least 3 dorms had complete shut downs (as in, you have 2 hours until lockdown for 10-12 days, please stay but if not you can leave with parents). Cases skyrocketed in late Oct (who would have thought with Halloween and being in a state that was leading the country for covid at that point). However, in Jan 2021, the university instituted mandatory weekly testing for everyone attending courses on campus/living on/near campus. The rates were much more manageable that semester; they were able to shut down just single floors of dorms because they could catch it much sooner.
And yes, kids would avoid testing on campus if they felt only slightly ill, or would go off campus to check, because they knew it wouldn't be reported to campus and if needed they could still attend classes/exams.

The mandatory testing helps protect everyone---including the professors (like you) who try so hard to provide excellent in person instruction. Helps protect staff/profs who might have vulnerable people at home (kids not eligible for vaccines until just now and immunocompromised family/friends).

Even Dec 2021, Cornell knew things were "blowing up on campus" because of the extensive testing. It allowed them to enact stricter protocols to finish final exams for those that were not already ill.

From inside the higher-ed world: Schools that initiated covid vaccination requirements (of whatever kind) often also tended to be schools with more robust surveillance programs and more detailed data reporting. My individual no-policy institution had a stunningly low percentage of covid cases officially listed in comparison to other institutions within a radius of a few miles in the same metro area (upper Midwest). The difference wasn't less covid. The difference was less testing. So attempting to draw larger conclusions about college spread without much more nuanced analysis is going to be a losing errand.

There has always been very strong incentive among college students not to test if they didn't absolutely have to. Heck, there is strong incentive in society in general right now not to test if you don't absolutely have to. My family personally tests a lot, but I know others don't, and I know my students don't, which is why I have to mask to teach. If one student gets covid, they take a few days out or have to listen on Zoom. If I get covid, the _whole class_ is stuck with that arrangement. I figure they'd rather have me there in real life and be there themselves in real life, even if I'm wearing a mask at the time.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The big deal is that there is no benefit for OP's kid, w/two shots and two covid infections. Only risk. Forcing it is unethical. There is no basis.

(See eg https://www.fda.gov/media/159007/download #38)

I agree (I'm not the pp you quoted, but I'm the first respondent at 16:41 yesterday.)
But schools made their position on the vaccine known before decision day (May 1.) As a pp noted, a few (like Rice and Vanderbilt) have actually walked back their requirement for a booster (I'm not aware of any schools that did NOT have a booster requirement on May 1, but have since mandated it.)

If it was important to someone to have a choice to not get the booster, they could have applied to many other schools that not only do not require the booster, but do not require the vaccine at all.

Yes! Colleges can set their requirements. You can choose not to attend if you don't want to follow it. Colleges have had vaccination reqs for decades. Some even require Meningitis B vax, others don't. My kid can't attend most universities without the whole slew of vaccinations, similar to what was required in K-12 as well. If you are a Health sciences major, you may have even more reqs. My DC is employed at a company involved in the Healthcare industry, and guess what, since they have to travel to "healthcare sites", they are required to get a TB test done (and follow up with treatment I'd assume if they happen to test positive). It's part of the job reqs. Don't like it, they can find another job. Similarly they are required to be up to date on all other vaccines, including covid and a booster. I for one would prefer anyone I might encounter in healthcare setting to be fully vaxed for all diseases.

+1 from college faculty. Families who don't work in higher ed, use your imagination about the human petri dish that is a college campus. Now multiply that by 100, stop washing your hands, and share your beverage with the 6 nearest people around you, even if you've never met them before. Even before covid, college students were sick *constantly*. Anything you can immunize against, do it, and any healthy behaviors you can promote (including basic things like nutrition and sleep), do it.

As PPs have said, families of rising college freshmen are completely free to decline admissions offers at any time from schools with whose policies (of any kind) they disagree. And absolute truth to tell, as inconvenient or expensive or disappointing or frustrating or bait-and-switch or wasteful as it might seem, older students are also completely free to take a gap year or transfer out if they don't want their school's covid mandates. No one is forcibly trapped in college.

What subject do you teach in college?

Yes, college campuses are Petri dishes. However, the Covid vaccine and the Covid booster do NOT prevent transmit on of Covid. We have known that for a long time now.

How does mandating a Covid vaccine or booster help prevent the spread of Covid? It does not.

This isn't true. Vaccines and boosters reduce the spread of Covid 19.


One study of households in Scotland found that vaccination reduces transmission by 40-50% among household members.

https://www.bmj.com/content/376/bmj.o298

Yes, it does not reduce the transmission to 0% but it greatly reduces it. If everyone had just gotten vaxed initially, covid would not have been allowed to mutate as much and we would be in a different place right now. Measles used to be a thing of the past in the USA (and much of the world), but as more people don't vax their kids, we have seen more outbreaks in the past 15 years. Same with Whooping cough---know a fully vaxed teen that had a nasty case 8 years ago when it went rampant in our community, not to mention how dangerous it was to any of the younger kids who got it who were not yet old enough to be fully vaxed against it.
Herd immunity is a real thing, despite some people not wanting to believe in science.

Whooping cough has some interesting parallels to mRNA vax in that pertussis is also a subunit vaccine, where the vaccine seeks to provoke immunity to only a portion of the organism. (The whole-cell pertussis vax caused too many adverse events and had to be pulled.) The current pertussis vaccine provokes immunity to PRN. Pertussis then evolved around immunity to PRN, that is, PRN-deficient strains now dominate circulating pertussis even, or perhaps especially, among vaccinated individuals. See, e.g. Pertactin-Deficient Bordetella pertussis, Vaccine-Driven Evolution, and Reemergence of Pertussis https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8153889/

You obviously know much more than me about this. But I do know that medical staff are now encouraging the Pertussis vax every 5 years in 20 somethings. My DC got the booster last year at 21 (10 years after the last dose as a kid/teen). Normally DTP (diphtheria, tetnus and pertussis) are supposed to be done every 10 years, if you didn't need a booster before that for Tetnus. But the nurse/dr told my DC that they recommend every 5 years because 20 somethings will start to have friends who are having kids and it's incredibly important to make sure you don't give whooping cough to a child not fully protected yet (and it also protects the 20 something). As I stated, our area has had a few whooping cough outbreaks due to non-vaxers in the past 8 years, so they are more alert to issues than many areas may be.

Pertussis evolved around the vaccine. Getting pertussis boosters does not make a person more immune to PRN-deficient strains, which predominate, nor does the current pertussis vax prevent outbreaks of PRN-deficient strains.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The big deal is that there is no benefit for OP's kid, w/two shots and two covid infections. Only risk. Forcing it is unethical. There is no basis.

(See eg https://www.fda.gov/media/159007/download #38)

I agree (I'm not the pp you quoted, but I'm the first respondent at 16:41 yesterday.)
But schools made their position on the vaccine known before decision day (May 1.) As a pp noted, a few (like Rice and Vanderbilt) have actually walked back their requirement for a booster (I'm not aware of any schools that did NOT have a booster requirement on May 1, but have since mandated it.)

If it was important to someone to have a choice to not get the booster, they could have applied to many other schools that not only do not require the booster, but do not require the vaccine at all.

Yes! Colleges can set their requirements. You can choose not to attend if you don't want to follow it. Colleges have had vaccination reqs for decades. Some even require Meningitis B vax, others don't. My kid can't attend most universities without the whole slew of vaccinations, similar to what was required in K-12 as well. If you are a Health sciences major, you may have even more reqs. My DC is employed at a company involved in the Healthcare industry, and guess what, since they have to travel to "healthcare sites", they are required to get a TB test done (and follow up with treatment I'd assume if they happen to test positive). It's part of the job reqs. Don't like it, they can find another job. Similarly they are required to be up to date on all other vaccines, including covid and a booster. I for one would prefer anyone I might encounter in healthcare setting to be fully vaxed for all diseases.

+1 from college faculty. Families who don't work in higher ed, use your imagination about the human petri dish that is a college campus. Now multiply that by 100, stop washing your hands, and share your beverage with the 6 nearest people around you, even if you've never met them before. Even before covid, college students were sick *constantly*. Anything you can immunize against, do it, and any healthy behaviors you can promote (including basic things like nutrition and sleep), do it.

As PPs have said, families of rising college freshmen are completely free to decline admissions offers at any time from schools with whose policies (of any kind) they disagree. And absolute truth to tell, as inconvenient or expensive or disappointing or frustrating or bait-and-switch or wasteful as it might seem, older students are also completely free to take a gap year or transfer out if they don't want their school's covid mandates. No one is forcibly trapped in college.

What subject do you teach in college?

Yes, college campuses are Petri dishes. However, the Covid vaccine and the Covid booster do NOT prevent transmit on of Covid. We have known that for a long time now.

How does mandating a Covid vaccine or booster help prevent the spread of Covid? It does not.

This isn't true. Vaccines and boosters reduce the spread of Covid 19.


One study of households in Scotland found that vaccination reduces transmission by 40-50% among household members.

https://www.bmj.com/content/376/bmj.o298

Yes, it does not reduce the transmission to 0% but it greatly reduces it. If everyone had just gotten vaxed initially, covid would not have been allowed to mutate as much and we would be in a different place right now. Measles used to be a thing of the past in the USA (and much of the world), but as more people don't vax their kids, we have seen more outbreaks in the past 15 years. Same with Whooping cough---know a fully vaxed teen that had a nasty case 8 years ago when it went rampant in our community, not to mention how dangerous it was to any of the younger kids who got it who were not yet old enough to be fully vaxed against it.
Herd immunity is a real thing, despite some people not wanting to believe in science.

Hilarious. If you (and the CDC/FDA) beloved in science, they would acknowledge and honor natural immunity, as they do in other parts of the world.

And, even your hero Fauci quit pushing the idea of hers immunity about a year and a half ago.

Fauci quit pushing it when it became apparent that a significant portion of those in USA don't believe in science enough to get the vax.