OMG- give it up! I never said I was worried. I was stating the Tufts policy. I don’t make the rules at Tufts. I am a student and that is my school’s rules. Would you like me to complain? transfer out?
I’m not promoting any mask wearing. We are discussing school policies for the fall.
I work full time during the summer as well as training in martial arts, playing golf and music. I lead a full life with zero fear of Covid. I had it and was fine. So your perception of me it totally off base. I also worded 20 hours/week during school. So I have made the best of a bad situation.
PS I haven’t worn a mask in months and I don’t understand your obsession with me?!
That’s great. I’m glad you’re doing well. It just seemed like you’re ok with Tufts’ plan. If I were you or your parents I would be on the horn to whoever is making these decisions at Tufts. If this happens at our kids’ schools, I’ll be doing that right away. I’d want to understand where they are getting the data to support masking and testing vaccinated students. If I were a Tufts student, I’d want to know what exactly will happen if I’m vaccinated but test positive. I can’t go to class for ten days? I don’t think students or parents should be blindly accepting those rules.
Might I remind members of the forum rules: “Our forum is expected to be a friendly and welcoming place, and one in which members can post without their motives, intelligence, or other personal characteristics being questioned by others."
and
“College Confidential forums exist to discuss college admission and other topics of interest. It is not a place for contentious debate. If you find yourself repeating talking points, it might be time to step away and do something else… If a thread starts to get heated, it might be closed or heavily moderated.”
Our friends at ND have told us that Notre Dame accepts “philosophical” grounds for vaccine exemption for employees, but not students. Everyone can claim medical or religious exemption.
How long will we be protecting others who aren’t vaccinated? Selfishly, for our two kids, I’m glad they go to colleges that are fully residential and will likely have very high compliance. No one is living off campus with family.
In a perfect world, colleges require the vaccine and only a very small number of medical exemptions are made. Done. There would be very little to no Covid on those campuses. We live in a county where 80 percent are vaccinated and we’ve had zero cases for two weeks and only one case the week before that in our town. If a large percent are vaccinated, cases are rare.
Vaccinated people will be getting breakthrough cases for the rest of time (unless covid disappears). Someone posted the Massachusetts rate of breakthrough cases above…it’s 0.1% (around 4500 cases on 4.2m vaccinated). I’m not sure it makes sense to make policy based on that extremely low number.
I think the discussion and sticking point is the mandating of masks indoors in a setting where all but about 5% will have the vaccine, when the CDC (and science)support no need for masking if you are vaccinated. The very low rate of vaccine-breakthrough cases(which are milder in general than for unvaxed) plus a high rate of vaccinated people makes the risk of Covid spreading far less than all of the other potential deadly diseases (meningitis)that also have mandatory vaccines(with exceptions) in college yet…no masks. At some point this all becomes ridiculous when we have an outstanding vaccine. I am all for optional masking for those who want to, etc, but not mandating it in a non-health care setting where the vast majority is vaccinated. The science does not support that policy. I am a physician, diagnose /manage and test for Covid daily, and the science does support continued masking in health care settings, especially where I practice in pediatrics, as the majority of my patients are not able to be vaccinated yet.
It sounds like, at least in Maine’s case, the law allows for schools to not grant religious exemptions for students but that doesn’t apply to employees. That’s why Bowdoin has to take religious exemptions into account for faculty. That being said, I doubt many of those profs or staff are going to ask for an exemption anyway.
Think of the Oxford - AstraZeneca vaccine as like a worse version of the J&J - Janssen vaccine. They are similar in concept, but use different vector viruses. But the Oxford - AstraZeneca vaccine requires two doses instead of one, and was less effective in trials, while having the same rare problems with slightly less rarity.
As of 7/15, UChicago dropped the indoor mask requirement for vaccinated individuals. Entry to university buildings is still restricted at this time, however, and requires a university ID. IMO they are moving too slowly and deliberately, but I suppose the up-side is that they won’t end up reversing themselves later on
Northeastern is not the only university with a vaccine requirement that is mandating testing in some form. Johns Hopkins University says vaccinated students must have tests done once per week, while at George Washington University all vaccinated students must be tested once per month. Columbia University in New York is requiring anyone coming to campus this fall to participate in its ongoing surveillance program, where all community members must be open to being randomly selected for testing. Duke University has the same policy in place for students.
Wow. NEU is 1/3 international students! That, plus its location, make it different from some other schools. I’d just like to know what schools with testing protocols are going to do with vaccinated asymptomatic Covid students when those kids have no remote option for class. Will they quarantine? How long? What happens when they can’t go to class? How can they justify quarantine when we know that those people really don’t have the viral load to spread Covid to someone else?
When there is free movement of people and a location Is a popular destination for tourists or business people then the local population vaccination rate doesn’t show the full picture.
For example Tufts has a campus in Boston. What happens when the city hosts a massive sporting match and thousands of maybe unvaccinated fans descend into the sports bars or street parties? Europe is experiencing the aftermath of the football championship at the moment.
