Colleges in the 2021-2022 Academic Year & Coronavirus (Part 2)

By default, the college says that Maine’s CDC policies still apply to them, even if the college has not enacted a more restrictive isolation policy:

Students must comply with Bowdoin’s COVID-19 testing, tracing, and quarantining protocols. Students agree to comply with the COVID-19 requirements and/or guidance of Bowdoin College Health Services and/or the Maine Center for Disease Control, including related to COVID-19 testing, quarantine, and self-isolating.

https://www.bowdoin.edu/dean-of-students/ccs/campus-life/covid19.html

Like any adult, students could choose to ignore those requirements, chance it that the college might not enforce the stated policies, else be willing to accept any consequences.

Right but it might not be Bowdoin’s responsibility to make sure kids isolate ten days. If it’s time for break and school isn’t in session then maybe they then leave the decision up to the student after finals are over with no disciplinary action. At that point, the student is maybe just like any other adult who happens to be in Maine.

They could still have the runners over Christmas. At my kids school, they still have dining services over thanksgiving and Christmas, there are people who don’t celebrate and students who must stay on campus (international, students who grew up in foster homes, etc etc). If they had a tiny handful of students in isolation on actual Christmas (it would likely be a vanishingly small number of students, as many campuses finish finals around December 14-17, so the number of kids still in isolation (who aren’t able to get home) on December 25 can’t be many….I’d guess dining services could manage a drop off for that small number of potential students. If hotels can offer room service, I’d think schools could do some sort of drop off. I’d be shocked if my kids college isn’t offering their isolation services over the first 10 days of break, but I also would be shocked if there are many students taking them up on it (they are allowed/encouraged to go home via private car if they can).

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From today’s Boston Globe. Boosters will be required for spring.

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Bowdoin too. Just got an email. Booster required to be on campus for spring semester.

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Happened to first year at Bates. Thankfully not mine. That’s rough-anticipating a trip home & getting stuck in the isolation dorm instead.

Amherst College requiring boosters by February 1st as well.

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good luck with the larger schools managing boosters , submittals, etc. and in some parts of the country getting appointments is not easy.
Neither of my kids want to get a booster. My D had covid, and had 2 of the Moderna. Luckily she is no longer in college. My S will sooner drop out his final semester than get a booster. He got his J n J in Aug. It was suppose to be one and done. He had weird side affects and he absolutely refuses the mnra vaccines
Israel is now looking into 4th boosters. This getting a bit out of control, in that we need to get vaccinated every 6 months? Even Flu vaccines are once a year. (probably need to move this over to the booster thread)

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Purdue, a large school, is giving boosters on campus at the health center. Everyone is encouraged to get the the booster before they go home for the winter break. Purdue never mandated the vaccine but unvaccinated students have to jump through a lot of hoops, including weekly surveillance testing. The university said that as soon as the CDC changed the definition of “fully vaccinated” to include having a booster, anyone without a booster will need to go for weekly testing.

Students have a “covid dashboard” on their portals with a bunch of stuff that needs to be submitted before being allowed back on campus. With modern technology, it’s not a big deal managing boosters, tracking, testing.

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RIT has pretty much left students on their own to get vaccinated throughout the entire time. Only thing they did was have Flu vaccine clinics . For the fall they were allowing exemptions but with weekly testing. For the spring, they tightened down the exemptions to a rare few. I dont tend to believe that for Spring they will require boosters, but maybe for next fall.
Now when my son gets employment, that will be interesting. At one point does his one shot JnJ no longer count.

Many expect the CDC to change the definition of fully vaccinated to include a booster, perhaps sooner rather than later. Yesterday’s Pfizer data clearly showed much greater effectiveness vs Omicron with three shots vs two.

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That was the message we are hearing from Purdue which is why they are encouraging students get their boosters before they leave campus.

The university always holds flu clinics in September and October on campus. Last year and this year, flu vaccines were mandatory for students.

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Pitt’s vaccine mandate just went into effect on Dec 6 so they can’t require boosters yet.

I’m sure their are many students who are nowhere near being eligible for boosters yet even at schools that had mandates in effect earlier since you have to be 6 months out from your last shot. If you got your second shot in August, you won’t be eligible for a booster until February. I wonder how they will deal with this.

Right this is true. For universities that didn’t require a vaccine for fall semester, they will have students who aren’t eligible for a booster yet.

I bet a lot of schools that mandate the booster also mandated the vaccine for fall semester. I have to believe a vast majority of the staff and students were vaccinated well before Aug since those schools also pushed vaccines in April and May before the kids even left for summer.

Trivial! Colleges, like schools, dealt with submitting health requirement for ages. Besides, they had March through (at minimum) August 2020 to prepare the logistics in anticipation of vaccines becoming available that December 2020 - and then another half year before all students were eligible.

Kids, faculty and staff have university or college-mandated apps on their phone (e.g., https://www.coverified.us/) to report their daily (lack of) symptoms, conveniently access their test result, show “green”, if their vaccination status is approved and their most recent negative test is no older than a week +1 day.
Some even handle the contact tracing/alert.

It’s second nature for everyone to show their phone (which typically never leaves kids’ palms anyway) as they enter campus buildings.

Outside the U.S., entire countries manage matters this way…

Hopefully, once everyone starts doing their part in developed countries, and developing countries are afforded to bring up their vaccination rates, we can slow the rapid evolution of variants so that this can become just a regular annual jab, as you hope.

In fact, with modern methods there’s now a reasonable chance that flu and Covid vaccines can be combined sooner rather than later.

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One way would be to just stay away from any “booster” controversy and them simply requiring that your most recent Covid jab can’t be more than 7 months old (and that policy can then easily be adjusted as acceptable gaps might change in the future).

I agree it is terrible that the developing world does not have the vaccines available to those that want it but I also am pretty sure that you will not see a massive line for everyone to show up and get their vaccine when they are available. There will be many countries that have very low vaccination rates for numerous reasons.

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South Africa is a good example…no vaccine supply issues, relatively low vaccination rates.

Distrust of government occurs in many countries.

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@Mwfan1921
@yearstogo
Naturally, I realize there’ll always be others to point to. However, the playground excuse:

But Tommy did it too!

only works up to a certain age.

No matter the topic, everyone of us has the moral obligation to step up individually (or as a country) and do what’s right and necessary, regardless what others might fail to do.

Inaction-per-default has never gotten humanity beyond a problem.

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