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US colleges will require students to be vaccinated, despite state policies:
A growing number of US colleges have said all students must be fully vaccinated before returning to campus, in a move likely to anger some state governors. At least 14 colleges have said vaccination will be required so far, according to a CNN tally, and that number is expected to grow.
In late March Rutgers University became one of the first institutions to declare that having all students vaccinated will allow for an "expedited return to pre-pandemic normal."
Cornell, Brown, Notre Dame, Northeastern, Syracuse, Ithaca and Fort Lewis have made similar announcements, though all will make exceptions for medical or religious reasons. Cornell has also created an online registration tool so students and staff can register their vaccination status.
Two colleges, St. Edward's University in Austin, Texas, and Nova Southeastern University (NSU) in Broward, Florida, have gone a step further, requiring students and all campus employees to be vaccinated.
NSU's policy puts it on a collision course with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. After NSU's announcement on April 1 DeSantis signed an executive order stating that vaccines are available but not mandated. Crucially the order prohibits any government entity or business from requiring a vaccine passport. NSU said Thursday that it is reviewing the executive order.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday April 12 2021, @12:40PM (35 children)
Are these universities placing any limits on the efficacy of these vaccines? Last I heard the Chinese vaccine was only 50% effective. Don't we meed higher to achieve herd immunity?
(Score: 2, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @01:25PM (27 children)
We are at a near saturating level of misinformation surrounding these vaccines. The original strain used to develop the vaccines is already extinct:
https://nextstrain.org/ncov/global [nextstrain.org]
The vaccine is going to be less and less effective as new resistant variants are selected and immunity wanes, using one number like 95% makes no sense. I expect we will see large outbreaks in many of these fully vaccinated colleges.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @01:36PM (26 children)
So far the people vaccinated are not jamming the hospital beds and ICU units. And that is the outcome we want. Unless you missed the boat by a year, it's not reasonable to eradicate this virus anymore. It will remain endemic and we'll just have to live with it. The vaccine allows us to do so without overflowing hospitals.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @01:56PM (21 children)
Hospitals are overflowing in New Zealand where there no covid:
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/its-crisis-overwhelmed-ed-staff-in-hospitals-often-tears-experts-say [tvnz.co.nz]
Stopping covid does not prevent overflowing hospitals. Building bigger hospitals with more staff prevents overflowing hospitals. There was a year to do this and no one did it, because they do not actually care about preventing overflowing hospitals.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Immerman on Monday April 12 2021, @02:24PM (11 children)
No - nobody built new hospitals because they'd all be standing empty once everyone was either vaccinated or recovered from COVID. They'd be a total waste of money.
It'd be like building all new streets to handle the flood of traffic around a superbowl - a huge amount of wasted money. You make temporary plans to handle the temporary surge, and then things to back to normal.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @02:26PM (8 children)
Hospitals are overwhelmed in NZ. The nurses are all crying and patients are stuck in the hall. There is no covid. Are you a bot?
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday April 12 2021, @04:07PM (7 children)
NZ is a special case, they're suspecting the surge is due to all the people who avoided treatment for the last year due to COVID. They have no reason to believe it's a long-term trend, and so expanding hospitals would be a poor investment.
There is never any financially sound reason to expand infrastructure unless you're expecting a long-term increase in demand.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @06:25PM (6 children)
No they aren't.
Hospitals are overwhelmed every flu season in the US. https://time.com/5107984/hospitals-handling-burden-flu-patients/ [time.com]
The solution is more space and staff, which no one cares to do.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday April 12 2021, @06:58PM (5 children)
Nope, try again - the second paragraph in your own link:
“I’ve been in practice for 30 years, and it’s been a good 15 or 20 years since I’ve seen a flu-related illness scenario like we’ve had this year.”
Building infrastructure for something that happens only once every 15-20 years is extremely unlikely to generate good return on investment. Just like airlines and amusement parks, private hospitals want to operate at very near capacity on a regular basis in order to maximize the return on investment. If that means they have to turn people away during occasional surges, well the lost revenue is far less than the cost of over-building, so it's still an unmitigated win for the investors.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @07:12PM
2013:
https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/01/14/health-officials-say-nj-hospitals-overrun-with-flu-cases/ [cbslocal.com]
2015:
https://www.nbcnews.com/video/hospitals-across-u.s.-are-overrun-with-flu-patients-385536067882 [nbcnews.com]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @09:29PM (3 children)
Exactly. Just like building a power grid that can withstand the class of storm that only occurs once every 100 years. Oh, wait...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @02:57AM
IF they don't like Texas, they can move to Mexico.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @04:49AM (1 child)
If you are referring to Texas then it was a 'class of storm that only occurs once every 10 years', not 100. IIRC the federal government requires building for 100 year events.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @05:13AM
Whilst technically true, it was billed as a 100 year event.
Which one? Both.
(Score: 3, Touché) by shortscreen on Monday April 12 2021, @08:54PM
Except what you wrote didn't contradict what the parent wrote. If hospital capacity is dictated by financial interests that won't abide excess capacity, then "the hospitals are full!" is an ordinary occurance rather than a cause for alarm.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday April 13 2021, @02:55AM
Eh, since there won't be any games for a while, put up a MASH unit inside the stadium, at least they have lights and water
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Tork on Monday April 12 2021, @03:01PM (8 children)
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @06:27PM (7 children)
How so?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @06:35PM (6 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @07:26PM (5 children)
What exactly made it dangerous to build new hospitals in New Zealand last year?
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @07:54PM (4 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @09:07PM (3 children)
So now it is difficult instead of dangerous? And in my city there were more construction projects than ever, so your premise is wrong.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @10:05PM (2 children)
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @12:31AM (1 child)
In my town construction workers wore an onion on their belt, as was the style at the time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @02:59AM
Is that a gay thing? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_symbols [wikipedia.org]
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @09:21PM (3 children)
oh stfu, you brainwashed slave. this bug, despite the fact that you paid for it to be strengthened in a lab, is still not that big of a deal, and natural immunity is already winning. moronic slaves getting their slow kill shot has shit all to do with anything. you're just a suck ass bitch.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Tork on Monday April 12 2021, @10:13PM (1 child)
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday April 13 2021, @06:07PM
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday May 21 2021, @01:11AM
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Immerman on Monday April 12 2021, @02:19PM (6 children)
Herd immunity is looking unlikely - you generally need 85-95% immunization for herd immunity to work. And as contagious as COVID is, we're probably talking at least 95%.
Meanwhile IIRC we've got at least 15% of the population claiming they will never get vaccinated, another 15% saying they probably won't, plus the roughly 18% under 15 for whom the safety and efficacy of the vaccines are not yet well established, who mostly won't get severely sick, but through whom COVID can reasonably be expected to spread like wildfire as we reopen schools.
And given the political climate, it's a fair bet that most of those clamoring the loudest to open up are also those who aren't planning to get vaccinated.
At this point, I'm half leaning towards waiting until everyone who wants the vaccine has had a chance to get it, and just openning up again. Plan to refuse medical service to any voluntarily unvaccinated COVID patient once the hospitals near capacity, and decide where to dig the mass graves now since we're likely looking at increasing the total number of cases to almost 3x in just few months, and increasing the number of deaths probably at least 10x as the hospitals overload and the risk of death surges without adequate medical care.
Alternately, we could try to avoid the excess deaths from overloading hospitals by actually seeking to flattening the curve - open up in a controlled fashion with an eye on spreading COVID as fast as possible without overloading the hospitals. But that could stretch it out for another year or so, primarily for the benefit of those who don't want the help.
If you're one of those who couldn't get the vaccine for medical reasons - good luck. Hopefully you can stock up and hunker down at home for a month or two as the surge passes, then things will be back to about as close to normal as they're ever going to get. With luck the tidal wave of COVID cases will even provide enough lingering herd immunity to starve out the straggling cases.
The biggest downside I see is the increased risk of a new, more dangerous, vaccine-immune COVID variant evolving within the surge of patients - but if they're all likely to get COVID eventually anyway, we're mostly just talking about taking a fresh hit a little sooner.
(Score: 5, Funny) by driverless on Monday April 12 2021, @02:24PM
We may never get to herd immunity, but I'd say we reached herd mentality some time ago.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @02:31PM
Then they either get infected and "vaccinate" that way, or not get infected and demonstrate that the thing is as overrated as they believe. Win-win?
Maybe even get a written agreement to that from them (limited to COVID, of course). For those who really do expect to not get sick, no problem at all signing it, and for those who just hadn't thought things through, a cause to do so.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @02:41PM
This reminds me of Facebook banning people. The smart ones already banned facebook via their hosts file.
If you want to go OD on hydroxychloroquine then put on a ventilator (or whatever new thing that has been thought up in a hysterical state) go for it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @09:24PM
"The biggest downside I see is the increased risk of a new, more dangerous, vaccine-immune COVID variant evolving within the surge of patients"
that's probably the whole point of the "experimental gene therapy". you dumb zombies will be causing the spread of the new mutant diseases and will blame it on the few real humans left.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday April 13 2021, @07:44AM
What absurd R value are you using to come up with that conclusion? And from what orifice are you pulling that value?
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday April 13 2021, @06:08PM
I keep hearing 70%, given how contagious covid is.