My apologies!!
Itâs the fault of whichever intern typed in an âOâ when they meant âNâ 
@ucbalumnus I donât know all the state law here in detail (our kids always got vaccinated) but I believe that the conscience exemption applies through post-secondary as well for all schools (edit to add: public and private). However, in Macâs case, very few request the exemption and I doubt that the Covid vaccine will be any different.
UChicago announced today that fully vaccinated individuals may opt out of weekly asymptomatic testing for the remainder of Spring Quarter. According to the university medical experts, in accordance with CDC guidance, such testing would no longer be necessary for those individuals. I donât believe that the university is holding this out as an incentive for vaccination as much as following a common sense health advisory; however, the idea that you can now skip the weekly mandatory or voluntary surveillance testing once fully vaccinated has to be a personal motivator for many. Also, the university still has face coverings and social distancing in effect for everyone on campus, even if vaccinated and when outside.
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Until everyone who wants vaccine has gotten a chance to become fully vaccinated, it is not surprising that these rules are still in effect, since those who have not had a chance to become fully vaccinated still face involuntary risks of the virus, and cannot readily tell if people approaching closely without masks are vaccinated (and therefore of little threat) or not (and therefore a virus threat).
Regarding masks outside⊠is the University of Chicago campus a place where outdoor spaces are typically crowded?
Until we can get a larger percent of people
vaccinated, masks indoors and near large outdoor gatherings will be required. I think part of the issue at colleges is no one knows who is or isnât vaccinated so easier to just keep the outdoor mask requirement (one of my daughterâs schools has it too) for the time being and as we know college kids do tend to congregate in closer non related groups of larger numbers.
Hoping the fda can speed up the approval process for the 12+ group but Iâve heard it will be slower than most people want which isnât good. It would be nice to get it by the end of May so that those numbers can go up.
I saw Michigan where my son will be attending already made changes again from their initial announcement about mask mandates as well with more in person classes etc with the vaccine mandate and less quarantine required etc so all good news. Keep it coming. Good news from two of my kids schools. Not expecting anything from the third lol.
Agree - and of course the large majority are still not fully vaccinated given the timing of the general eligibility, nor will they be for several more weeks. UChicago likely clarified their policies given that the CDC had recently relaxed recommendations about outside mask-wearing. No doubt the university was queried directly about this. Both the university and the city of Chicago continue with the same mask-wearing rules as before, even for the vaccinated.
One should be able to walk through the quads and remain six feet away from others most of the time. I think everyone is strongly encouraged to be masked up when on campus generally, as part of the stacked approach to protection. The problem wouldnât be campus as people follow the rules there; itâd be off campus - say, downtown Hyde Park which can get pretty busy on a weekend or a nice evening. Are students and others following the cityâs own mask mandate for outside activities? Sometimes yes and other times no.
University of Michiganâs mask mandate is still pretty strict. Due to the high volume of persons on campus, masks are required on campus property outdoors regardless of othersâ distance. https://ehs.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/U-M-Face-Covering-Policy-for-COVID-19.pdf
UChicago is slightly more relaxed, as they require you to wear a mask on the grounds when others are within six feet: COVID-19 Health Precautions | University of Chicago
This is an example of how different university environments, student populations, etc. will drive the Covid protocols.
(edit to add: UChicagoâs protocols for eating in the dining halls this past year requires eight feet of separation rather than six feet - another distinction but this one based on UCMâs own experience with eating and Covid while they were treating the large number of infected last spring. They discovered that six feet apart wasnât enough to protect a group eating together, but eight feet worked)
In March as part of their fall re-opening plan, Michigan announced 80% dorm capacity and most large lecture courses to be offered remotely (smaller courses will be offered in person). Have there been changes to any of that since the res hall mandate was announced a week ago? It does make sense that a mandatory vaccine means no need to quarantine in the dorms at the start of the year. Itâll be interesting to see how schools not mandating a vaccine will handle dorm move-in or whether they will announce any sort of quarantine or stay-at-home for a period of time.
I was on a college campus watching an outdoor sporting event on Thursday. They would only let parents and friends of players into the stands, so the rest of us were sitting on steps or the grass.
One guy was told to put a mask on. He said, âThe president said we donât have to, outsideâ but the campus worker said it was private property and a mask was still required. Honestly, few on the hill had masks on but all in the stands had to wear them but the college still has the rule.
By fall, it is expected that unvaccinated people will be in two categories: (a) medically unable to be vaccinated with any of the available vaccines (small numbers), and (b) voluntarily refused vaccine (large numbers). The currently large group who wants vaccine but has not yet been able to get it (plus the waiting time after vaccination to become fully protected) and therefore still vulnerable to involuntary risk of the virus is not expected to be a concern (except for the small group (a)) in the fall.
Because, by fall, group (b) will be voluntarily taking the risk of the virus, colleges and other entities may choose to reduce restrictions, since it will be mainly the voluntary virus risk takers that would be vulnerable to the virus. However, the small group (a) would still be a concern, though they are likely to have a concern with other viruses and bacteria as well and are probably used to having to take extra precautions in normal life.
Group (b) could still cause external effects in terms of breeding variants of concern if the virus continues to circulate among them.
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My daughters school reported at least 87% of undergrads have gotten vaccinated, so they dropped the weekly testing for those students. The kids were thrilled. They also dropped the outside mask mandate because at least 74% of their total population reports they are vaccinated. The students are all very aware that their ability to have restrictions lifted depends on the populationâs vaccination numbers.
When they reported their numbers faculty and staff were about 72% vaccinated but grad students were only 61%. I wonder if the carrot of dropping weekly testing will encourage more to get vaccinated? Itâs possible more are vaccinated than reported though because this is just results of a survey they were asked to fill out and only 69% of grad students responded (vs. 94% of undergrads). The school has to base things on survey results because they are in a state that does not currently allow proof of covid vaccination.
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Some colleges will be offering in the fall the carrot/stick that vaccination allows the student (on an individual basis) to be exempt from requirements like frequent testing or quarantining if exposed. This applies both to those that will require vaccination but have non-medical exemptions that vaccine refusers are likely to use, and those which will not require vaccination.
I wonder if colleges and universities not requiring a mandate will use a âgroup a/group bâ thought process or whether they will simply look at infection and vaccination patterns across the US, in their local area, among the age group and in the student population coming to campus, and respond accordingly. I think vaccine mandates signal confidence and earnestness on the intent to return to ânormalâ - and the earlier announced, perhaps, the better - but I wonder how truly impactful they will be in terms of infection behavior or Covid policy come fall. Again, itâs going to differ by the specifics of each universityâs locale, student population, and so forth as well as state law, FDA status, and so forth.
@ucbalumnus: the UC systemâs mandate is âproposedâ at this point and rests importantly on the lifting of EUA - is that correct? Iâve read a couple of takes, one of which is that they will impose a mandate anyway come fall even if the FDA is delayed. But another is that it does require the lifting of EUA first. They announced, obviously, in the hopes that they will be able to implement such a mandate and to prepare students accordingly. Is there anything in CA state law, present or future, to change this expectation?
You may want to look at various college statements here:
I do not know of any specific California law in relation to your question.
Weekly testing is no longer recommended per CDC if the person is fully vaccinated so that makes sense. The relaxation of outdoor mask requirements is also in keeping with recent CDC guidelines and of course applies to everyone (some exceptions for the unvaccinated w/r/t group gatherings). As students better understand how colleges and universities make these decisions - based on current and future expected infection rates, for the most part, rather than granting exemptions as a ârewardâ - they will still come to understand how important their own role is in keeping the infection rate down for good.
I guess the following is an example of what I was noticing:
UC Proposes COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate.
âFor now, the vaccinations are highly recommended. But, under a proposed policy issued Thursday (April 22) and which the university hopes to implement for the fall term, all personnel, trainees and students accessing university facilities and programs in person would be required to be immunized against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The proposal allows for limited exceptions and exemptions.â . . . âEnforcement of the mandate would be delayed until at least one vaccine has full approval from the Food and Drug Administration (vaccines being administered now in the United States have only emergency-use authorization) and is widely available.â
I figured the âproposedâ as opposed to âcurrently mandatedâ has to do with state law but you would understand that better than I.
Making ârewardsâ or âpenaltiesâ based on group performance (e.g. vaccination rate of students) tends to be less effective at incentivizing individual behavior when the group is large, since some individuals do not care about others in the group and resist peer pressure, and individuals may feel that they have too little influence over the group performance to make it worth bothering to help the group performance.
I wonder, though, how many institutions will indeed be incorporating rewards and penalties in their Covid decisions going forward, as opposed to lifting and re-imposing restrictions based on health guidelines and overall group numbers. Most things like waiving weekly testing is to reduce the number of unnecessary tests, not to ârewardâ the vaccinated. A student might indeed believe itâs a carrot, but not sure the university is thinking so. Now, if they reduce tuition for the vaccinated - thatâs different!
Oops, I was typing that very late and on my phone and didnât mean to say they changed their mask mandate as they didnât. I meant it only to say because of their vaccine mandates they changed their modalities for next fall but no changes to mask mandates. Ugh - need to not be typing after midnight on my phone after a long day at work!
Their plans you mentioned about in March are what Iâm referring to that have started to change. The dorm setup at 80% is remaining the same which is fantastic. That change is merely not having triples or quads and to be frank, not many wants those anyway. At my daughterâs school a triple is what is considered a âforced tripleâ which is really a double with a third person. So at Michigan now if you get a regular double, youâre getting a room that was previously for 4 which is more ideal. As we know, unless itâs one of the crazy nice private dorms (Michigan doesnât have them) we are talking typical college dorm rooms. Stamps has announced more in person classes. My friendâs daughter is in stamps and they announced that theyâre changing their social distancing requirements to only 3 ft which will allow for increased occupancy in classrooms and studios and that theyâre going to developing a revised schedule that has more in person classes than previously planned. My son will be in Engineering and his classes already show as all in person so.
As far as a dorm quarantine, theyâve never said the kids had to quarantine in the dorms this fall. Neither of my other kidâs schools had a dorm quarantine last year either with the exception of one of them having a one day quarantine while they waited for a negative covid test after arriving on campus in the fall. I do think Michigan has said theyâre staggering the dorm move in over a week as opposed to 2-3 days like theyâve done in the past, but more so because it was really successful last year and parents really liked it. It does make things a lot less rushed. After flying to move two kids into apartments in two different states he will be the third to drop off and fortunately no planes involved.
@twoinanddone There are a lot of inconsistencies with colleges and even high schools with mask wearing or not. Our high school requires spectators to wear masks and for my sonâs sport he can only have 2 guests. I donât mind wearing my mask, as itâs not a big deal at all. Itâs just second nature at this point. My husband is watching the NFL draft and told me they have had 90k people attend so far over the 2 days and I was surprised, then realized it was in Ohio but then he said to get in you had to be vaccinated. I was impressed. He said many people have masks but not all, but thereâs a perfect example of mandated vaccine being used to get into a âsportingâ event. I guess this is the way of the future.
@PrdMomto1 Way to go! My daughterâs school is 50% vaccinated. They just had a huge number of people get vaccinated during a couple of wellness days last week so it will be interesting to see what the % is when those pop in there. Until recently the school didnât have the vaccine available so students who qualified had to drive an hour or more away to get vaccinated and many donât have cars so it was difficult. When my daughter qualified we told her do what she can to get there as it was so important to get that vaccine. Her second dose was scheduled the day before a preliminary and fortunately her professor was understanding if she had side effects that would impact her ability to take it. Luckily she had no issues and was able to study and take the exam. Agree that more are vaccinated than have reported. Seniors arenât coming back next year so no reason for them to update their information, although they can reduce their testing from 3 to 1x/week if they want. But with a few weeks left of school, some may not care. The rest of the population needs to be vaccinated by mid-July.
Colorado State University is also basing their vaccine mandate on the EUA authorization becoming full authorization. I believe they have reported that Pfizer has applied for full authorization or will be soon. I thought I heard that you need 6 months of data though, so if true, then we donât have that yet. But in any case, it sounds like there is plenty of time to get full authorization well before the end of August when schools go back.
Relaxed outdoor mask requirement is not full no mask requirement, so in large groups it is still recommended. So perhaps that is why in certain areas of the sporting event they needed to wear the masks as it should be. The variant is the biggest concern and most likely to be the thing that breaks through the people vaccinated if we donât reach herd immunity.
I do not believe this has to do with state law at all, but that theyâre only waiting for FDA approval of the vaccine because the UC schools have made it clear that once the vaccine has full FDA approval then they it is mandated. It has nothing to do with state law. California schools are not the only public universities that have mandated the vaccine and the state laws are not dictating whether they can or canât mandate it. Itâs what the university is deciding in these cases.
You are correct - state law is not the issue. Itâs federal law, as Iâm learning. The EUA authorization statute, introduced in 2004, contains language allowing a person to accept or refuse the treatment. The wording is subject to interpretation and hasnât been tested by the courts yet, particularly in the context of a pandemic and vaccine mandates to counter such. But one legal interpretation has been that this exception will preclude governments from requiring treatments that have EUA authorization. I suppose the dot-connecting would be from the state government to the public system of land-grant research universities. The California public university system might be considered a division of the state government. This may explain why the UC system is banking on full FDA approval prior to the mandate taking effect. States obviously have the general authority to issue vaccine mandates - thatâs been upheld numerous times. The challenge seems to be with the wording of the EUA provision itself.
I think you are correct. I still think the UC and CSU systems could have drawn a distinction between accessing their core educational component (no vaccine required until full FDA approval to access classroom, libraries, labs, etc.) and accessing campus amenities (vaccine required, even with only EUA, to access campus housing, varsity and intramural sports, rec center, indoor dining, etc.). Itâs disappointing that they just rolled over on this issue because itâs definitely going to affect the quality of the campus experience next year.