Full approval requires 2 years of test data, so is still a while off. The experimental nature of the authorized vaccines make it unlikely to be mandatory, but more importantly, universities are usually committed to equity in how students are treated. If international students do not have the usual required vaccines, they can be referred to a nearby CVS or public health dept or the colleges can do it themselves. Supply is not an issue, so it is easy to mandate for all.
Do you really think universities will refuse all unvaccinated kids entry when it will likely be most international students, and at the rate things are going, many students from California, many African American students, and of course, the poor?
I donât think full FDA approval will take that long. Everything related to the vaccines is supposely on an expedited schedule. Full approval involves inspections of manufacturing facilities, etc. (and of course, more data, including identification of side effects). With vaccination of millions of people worldwide, the completion of the process will be sooner rather than later, unless vaccines are found to cause serious side effects.
Could the time taken to obtain the required amount of data be much shorter in this case due to the unprecedented widespread use of the vaccines? . There is already real world data available, not merely experimental ones. Could the FDA team up with other countries and pool findings ?
Iâm assuming that means once there is FDA approval. Dâs school told students early last fall that the vaccine would be required, before the vaccine was even approved for emergency use.
The FDA seeks data over time, not just quantity of participants. They are quite aware that Thalidomide was approved for use in Europe, but not, thankfully, in the US as they required more time in the trials.
A school can require the experimental vaccine, but they would be opening themselves up to lawsuits if the vaccine ended up being dangerous.
The two universities I talked to are hoping the experimental designation is lifted by fall term. In my opinion itâs very likely that the FDA will expedite this.
Actually in the US weâve already given over 25 million shots. I think there is every reason to think all college personnel & students will have the opportunity to be vaccinated before fall. We only have ~250 million adults in the US eligible for the vaccine (not approved for those under 16/18 yet), so we are far past the 1% mark you mentioned. We are pretty close to 10% of eligible people having their first doses already, plus a subset with 2 doses complete. Our capabilities of administering shots outpace the production rates of Moderna/Pfizer at this point (we gave over 1.6 million shots the day before the Inauguration and governors have said they could do way more than that if only we had the supply). Moderna/Pfizer are both continuing to ramp up production. We should expect to have the 400 million doses they promised us by June. If we are very lucky, maybe 80% of the 250 million people will be willing to take a vaccine, probably less though (so 200 million, requiring the 400 million doses), so before kids are approved, we really only need/can use the 400 million doses weâve purchased at a maximum. But we may add in some doses from J&J, and we have a new contract for more 200 million M/P doses later in the summer. I think this does bode well for colleges remaining open in the fallâdespite what you might read, the vaccination campaign is progressing and ramping up apace, and thereâs no real reason to think we wonât have enough vaccine for everyone who wants one and is eligible by the end of June. I canât see why school in the fall would be in jeopardy. Even the few 16 year old freshmen are eligible for the Pfizer shot. As for international students, if they canât get it at home but can get on a flight here, I would imagine their college health services would be able to help them get a vaccine when they come in September. If a tiny group of college-related people canât/wonât take the vaccine (perhaps due to a rare extreme allergy or whatever) but everyone else there has taken it, I would think things can still proceed as normal on campus. Perhaps the unvaccinated few may opt to still be very cautious to protect themselves, much as I was extra careful when I was going through chemo, but didnât expect everyone around me to wear masks and social distance.
love your optimism, but the NY Times today reports 6% have received 1 dose, and 1% the second dose, of the vaccine, so we arenât quite as well positioned.
Bowdoin has not come out and said vaccinations mandatory but, in a town hall about spring semester, they were saying things like âwe hope to be back to very close to normal by fall since all should be vaccinated by then.â And my niece (as I shared above) insists she received at email from UIUC saying vaccines will be mandatory. I can try to google and see what I can find on that. Anyone else seeing any schools making statements on this?
Roycroftmom, the NYTimes is always reporting lagging data. Bloomberg does a better job getting the most updated data, although even they say they are a day or two behind in data. Bloomberg reported 24.5 million shots given, but is at least a day behind. NYTimes is a day further behind, reporting 23.5 million given, but they wait longer to get the latest information, surprisingly. We are averaging well over a million doses per day, so by now we definitely have over 25 million. The 6% NYTimes reports not only is based on slightly older data, but they are including all humans in the US, including the ineligible children aged 0-16, in their denominator. I donât think it makes sense to include the ineligible children in the denominator, since they canât get vaccinated. Iâm specifically pointing out that we only have about 250 million ELIGIBLE humans in the US, so the ~10% of all eligible US people I believe stands, as I said in my post above. GoldPenn had indicated they thought only 1% of people in the US had been vaccinated, which is fortunately VERY old news. This bodes well for getting all of the eligible people vaccinated by summer, as Pfizer & Moderna continue to find production efficiencies (their CEOs have given recent interviews on CNBC indicating thatâs the case; youâll read that Biden is increasing distribution by 18% in the next weeks, but thatâs really just Pfizer/Moderna increasing their production, nothing our government had a hand in this week). Pretty much all college-related people (workers, faculty, students) should be part of the 16 year old+ eligible 250 million people in the US (I canât imagine we have very many 15 year old or younger students living on college campuses), so I think this means good things for colleges. I did read that for the younger kids, we shouldnât necessarily expect them to be approved before fall for the 12-16 year olds, and not before 2022 for the <12 year olds. So Iâm not sure what that means for school campuses. In my mind, if all the K-12 teachers/staff can be vaccinated, that is certainly a huge step. It will be interesting to see how having unvaccinated k-12 students impacts things.
My daughter applied to three language programs for this summer. Two were hosted by ASU, and they announced today that their summer language immersion courses will be online for the second year. Slightly disappointing news, as language immersion is better in person (imo), but she is glad they made a decision rather than leaving it to the last minute to figure it all out.
until vaccines become readily available nothing can be mandated. Especially for college age and younger. My grandmother (83) cannot even get an appointment. so all this talk is very premature.
I think itâs also premature. Itâs impossible to get a vaccine in NY unless you live by the Canadian border, and nobody seems to know when more shipments are arriving. Appointments are getting canceled, websites are impossible, etc. NJ seems a little better, but not much.
I hope the process improves and we are all vaccinated by the summer, but who knows.