You are correct! There has been no announcement yet - but I also don’t expect any announcement mid-semester (especially since it wasn’t clear early-on how in-demand vs. easily available/accessible the bivalent booster might be).
While specific measures are fine-tuned throughout the year, policy shifts seem to always come into effect with the start of a new semester, giving people chance to prepare.
Per example, the general availability of abortion pills was announced now, for start next year.
At this point #s are dropping and quickly. Seems to be when #s climb when the protocols come en masse.
Exactly! FU should not announce it in the mid-semester. A lot freshmen parents felt “bait and switch”.
The virus does not respect college academic calendars. The availability of vaccines and treatments also does not necessarily align with college academic calendars (the bivalent booster became available just a little too late for residential college students to be able to get it before the high risk period at the beginning of the fall term).
Apparently, the possible need for additional boosters during the 22/23 year had been repeatedly mentioned throughout the spring and then had been explicitly restated as late as July 27:
“As of September 1, students, faculty, and staff are required to be fully up-to-date, as defined by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).”
The referenced CDC definition of “up to date” is:
When Are You Up to Date?
You are up to date with your COVID-19 vaccines if you have completed a COVID-19 vaccine primary series and received the most recent booster dose recommended for you by CDC.
So maybe their policy requiring to be up to date with the most-current, recommended booster had always been in place, just that some people weren’t that focused on campus policies, when the news around the city itself had focused on lifting restrictions.
And, of course, many parents could have understood the policy all along, never finding it the least controversial.
Parents are not anti-vax. Students had three jabs already as requested by the school. Students still got covids. It is the time to let them choose not mandates.
The vaccines are not expected to eliminate Covid, but to reduce occurrences, length and severeness. All data (and unfortunately, we do have years of data of outcome with/without, pre/post vax, with/without boosters) confirms that being accomplished.
The vaccine and booster do prevent some covid cases. They also prevent severe disease and death.
If parents of college age sons are concerned about the risk of myocarditis post vaccine/booster, which is reasonable, they should speak with their physician. I expect Fordham will allow medical exceptions to this new mandate. Of course we don’t know the myocarditis risk of the bivalent booster. But, AFAIK, the myocarditis risk of Moderna’s vaccine/booster is still lower than that from covid.
Parents/people who are concerned about the MRNA myocarditis risk should also be pressuring the FDA to approve the Novavax booster so people would have another booster option, one which doesn’t have a myocarditis risk.
Some cases of myocarditis have been noticed with the Novavax vaccine. See Novavax's COVID-19 Vaccine: Your Questions Answered > News > Yale Medicine . That page also says:
If that is true, then the same (rare) people vulnerable to myocarditis after vaccination are likely to be at increased risk of myocarditis after infection with the virus. That would also likely explain why increased cases of myocarditis were not noticed with the J&J vaccine, which induces a smaller antibody response than the other three vaccines.
It is also likely that a booster against a variant similar to the current one will be more effective at that than the previous boosters against the ancestral virus that is more different.
Yes, covid vaccines do not prevent infection or transmission. Boosters are unnecessary for healthy people under the age of 50. “The focus should really be on people who remain most at risk of becoming severely ill and hospitalized. This includes older residents, people with chronic health conditions, and those who are immunocompromised.”
(https://whyy.org/articles/omicron-covid-booster-shot-fall-what-to-know/)
Anyway, I am not a scientist and the concern is the risk of myocarditis.
Which is why all 3 of us got ours on the 2nd day they arrived.
@Dream20school - since this has been restated repeatedly now, is there any (medical) source, actually calling them unnecessary:
I’ve read the PBS article you linked, and back then it suggested the FOCUS (for the then yet to have become available bivalent booster) to be the most vulnerable groups - which is a far cry from calling something ineffective/unnecessary for the rest.
No! digital dad and I are both saying that the vaccines and boosters DO prevent some cases, but they don’t prevent all cases. And they also prevent severe cases and death…and that efficacy is better with boosters.
Contrary to the previously posted misinformation about the situation in the U.K.,…
A report released on Thursday by the UK Health Security Agency revealed other signs that England was experiencing a new wave of Covid, with hospital admission rates in the south-west showing a 250% increase since mid-September.
Here the latest report by Dr Susan Hopkins, the chief medical adviser at the UKHSA:
“This week’s data shows concerning further increases in Covid-19 cases and hospitalisation rates, which are now at their highest level in months.
…
“Make sure you have any Covid-19 vaccinations you are eligible for…
And in Italy:
In the week ended Oct 4, COVID-19 hospital admissions with symptoms jumped nearly 32%, while intensive care admissions rose about 21%, compared to the week before.
A booster closer to the current variant will improve the odds that anyone (young or old) will avoid getting infected or spreading the virus, even if it does not guarantee against such. The (temporary) exception is someone who recently got infected, who should wait for a few months and then get the booster in order to get the maximum benefit from the booster.
That is a reasonable concern and your college adult child should speak with their physician.
Are you concerned with the relatively higher rate of myocarditis from a covid infection (as compared to the MRNA products)?
Yes, I do concern. My impression it happened to young males. Also mandating is not right.
But that’s a political belief. Others think it is.
In the end, when you go to a school you are agreeing to comply with their rules. So if you don’t like it, then pull your student.
I don’t like when my HOA tells me to do something I hadn’t b4. But they have the right.
So does Fordham.
You don’t believe in mandatory vaxing. That’s your right.
But If Fordham does that it doesn’t matter what you think.
Now if everyone dropped out and they lost all their revenue maybe they’d change.
Our #s are headed south. However if history follows, our next season will be the new European variant.
And colleges…not just Fordham…will go back to masks and zoom. And if it brings illness and death like the first version…it’ll be even more.
It’s ok for you to disagree. But then you have to decide is it the right school for my child and they comply. Or do you pull them out ?
You’re making political statements but it is not a political issue.
I am not an American and not interested in any political statement. I only care about the risk of vax. That’s simple. In the USA everything is political these days. I am done here.
My biggest issue with the Fordham mandate is that its mid semester, so its “ get this vaccine or you lose all the money you paid this semester”
If they had said “by Spring semester” , that would give students the option to transfer/take a LOA , etc if they did not want the booster .
What about the students who just had Covid or will get it before Nov 1st. Its recommended to wait if you just had covid.
Glad my kids are no longer in school and can make decisions without thousands of dollars on the line.