Everyone is not wearing masks even now. D saw a small increase in masks used by customers. She is one of 3 employees who have stayed masked at work in her department, mostly so she doesn’t bring virus home. The managers have been arguing about whether or not to make staff mask up and as of yesterday, they are not. IMO, the numbers here are just going to keep going up. If the state steps in and requires them, people will just drive to neighboring counties where they are in better shape and I think that will cause increases there, too.
I believe the majority of states (Maine is not is in this category) require institutions by law to offer religious exemptions for vaccines.
DD starts her freshman year in August and, for now, they are planning on in person classes. They are also requiring vaccination for all students and staff as well as a COVID test before the semester starts.
I don’t know if they’ll require masks or not but whatever it takes to avoid virtual classes is OK with us.
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All of this talk of religious exemption is silly to me. Most school will be under 1%. Better be able to prove it beyond a doubt. People trying to cheat hopefully will get caught but also means they don’t care about you or themselves…
We can all just do what the schools ask us to do. Everything else is just complaining. Be safe… Mask up when appropriate. 
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University of Michigan just announced mandatory vaccine requirement for all students, faculty and staff by 8/30!! Woohoo!! Previously only those living on campus had to be vaccinated. This is great news.
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GW has resumed its indoor masking policy.
(This isn’t surprising since DC announced the same yesterday.)
This is in addition to requiring vaccinations of students, faculty, and staff which was announced a few months ago.
Yale changed their policy. Masks required indoors regardless of vaccination status…
Traveling when the news came out which is why I first only posted that article from Crains, but this is the official email sent to students today. Thank goodness they finally acted. Took a few months but this couldn’t have come at a better time.
Not definitively but have heard they expect it within the next month or 2 at the latest, however, I have heard that the FDA has cancelled a lot of “other” meetings over the next month in order to prioritize meeting about getting the vaccine FDA approved. Pfizer I believe applied first so should be approved before Moderna. I think I read the last few days that JNJ has not even applied yet.
Re religious exemptions, there are going to many that do not allow it. I know a company that mandated the vaccine for all employees other than for religious or medical reasons. A few employees claimed religious exemption. The attorney for the company wrote them letters and said no problem, they just need to turn over documentation showing their vaccine records that line up with their religious exemption claims against vaccines. Not one could, so it was either get the vaccine or be terminated. Many of these companies will push back and they have the legal upperhand. People don’t suddenly become against vaccines for religious reasons.
How many are truly going to get the vaccine once it is FDA approved? How many pull the “I need more research?”. There has been research performed on Mrna vaccines for years. ICU beds are filling up with patients that are not all elderly. Some have young children with no pre-existing conditions. This is not a good sign. The unvaccinated while not doing any favors for the vaccinated, are most certainly not doing any favors for themselves for sure and it’s becoming way too late for many of them. Of course there will eb break through cases. They’ve always said that. But, I’d much rather have a break through case of covid, than get a full out case of it and wind up on a ventilator and have long haul symptoms for the rest of my life.
Whoa so those who tried to get religious exemptions who haven’t done it in the past with other vaccines were turned down? Love that.
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The story behind the re-masking:
Ugh I just glanced at all of this data and all I can think is that it’s going to be hard to convince the unvaccinated when there are so many ways to look at the numbers. There needs to be some very clear message that goes out and I hope someone can figure out what that is.
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It does seem that there has been a bit of an uptick this past week on new vaccinations. So that’s a bit of good news. But I do predict that there will be many schools that put mask mandates in place. At least for the start of the semester. Ironically it will probably be Northeast schools with vaccination mandates and in states with high vax rates, while schools in hot zones and no vax mandate will be a free for all.
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Not really accurate. College students who had childhood vaccines before they were adults had no choice. Most importantly the reason for exemption is due to the testing on aborted fetal cells…catholics are not anti-vax…some are anti covid vax.
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Ok but did you read the whole story? How about this part?
While numerous studies have shown that the vaccines don’t work as well against the delta variant as they did against other strains, health officials say they are still highly effective, especially in protecting against severe illness and death. Roughly 97% of new hospitalizations and 99.5% of deaths in the U.S. are among unvaccinated individuals, U.S. health officials repeated this week.
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I’m surprised that we’re surprised by the rate of breakthrough infections. If the vaccinated people without other protection are certain to be exposed to a large amount of viral particles, their chances of infection could be as high as 30%+ for the delta variant. You’re taking your chances if you’re among lots of strangers in crowded spaces for a lengthy amount of time.
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I was responding to a comment about a particular company not allowing religious exemptions of their employees, not colleges and college students.
Even for a company- don’t most of us get vaccines when we are babies and have no choice in the matter? People can also evolve and turn to God as they get older.
Also, I’m not sure of other vaccines, but is this the only one tested on fetal cell lines?
I’m just pointing out some loopholes. Not arguing that they should allow or refuse.
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