Colleges anticipate high vaccination rates this fall, though exemptions are a worry

With the fall semester fast approaching, most Vermont colleges say they expect the vast majority of their students to be vaccinated against Covid-19, which experts say is particularly important in congregate living situations like dorms.

Still, colleges that require Covid-19 vaccinations grant exemptions on medical and religious grounds. And rates of exemption vary widely across Vermont campuses — up to a high of 9% of students at Norwich University who have been allowed to forgo vaccinations — raising concerns about controlling spread in a college setting.

The goal for colleges should be “as close to 100% [vaccination] as possible,” said Anne Sosin, a rural health researcher and policy fellow at Dartmouth College’s Nelson A. Rockefeller Center for Public Policy.

“This virus is really difficult to control in places where people are living and working in close quarters,” Sosin said.

Both St. Michael’s College and Champlain College anticipate 99% of students will be vaccinated by the time the school year starts, according to Sandy Yusen, Champlain College director of communications and external relations, and Dawn Ellinwood, St. Michael’s dean of students and vice president for student affairs. St. Mike’s has granted exemptions to just 24 of its roughly 1,500 students, Ellinwood said.

At the University of Vermont, the vaccination rate for students had topped 90% as of last week and was increasing, UVM spokesperson Enrique Corredera told VTDigger at the time. The university does not require employees to be vaccinated, nor are administrators keeping track of employee vaccination status, he said.

Corredera did not respond to a follow-up question on Tuesday afternoon about how many exemptions have been granted so far. Following publication of this story, Corredera said Wednesday morning that the student vaccination rate had since exceeded 98%.

Meanwhile, Norwich University has granted 9% of its students exemptions from the college’s vaccination requirement, according to Daphne E. Larkin, director of media relations and community affairs. Larkin declined to provide a breakdown of how many exemptions were for medical or religious reasons.

“Our community is so small that we have to be really careful about what we share publicly, because it’s easy to violate an individual’s privacy unwittingly by sharing details like that,” she said.

So far, 89% of Norwich employees are vaccinated, with 3% receiving exemptions and another 8% yet to report, according to Larkin.

Middlebury College “will know about numbers and percentages regarding exemptions later this month,” said Sarah Ray, director of media relations.

The Community College of Vermont does not require its students nor employees on its 12 campuses to be vaccinated.

Unvaccinated students at Norwich, plus a random sample of vaccinated students, will be tested upon arrival and seven days later, according to Larkin. The school will not conduct surveillance testing, but will regularly test student-athletes, in line with the Great Northeast Athletic Conference rules, Larkin said.

St. Michael’s College will require unvaccinated students to provide proof of a negative test result before arrival and submit to weekly testing, according to the school’s website. Unvaccinated students “may also need to comply with guidelines around quarantine, masking, and limitations on gatherings and visitors that vaccinated students may no longer need to follow,” reads the vaccination exemption request form.

Middlebury is not conducting surveillance testing, but plans to test and quarantine all students who are not fully vaccinated upon arrival. Students will be released from quarantine after a week and three negative test results, Ray said.

Diana in Wisconsin has a great tag line which is worth noting in this situation.

One of the most magnificent contemporary pieces was written by Jeffrey Snyder, A Nation of Cowards. While the piece is overtly about concealed carry, it is much broader than that. To wit:

Is your life worth protecting? If so, whose responsibility is it to protect it? If you believe that it is the police's, not only are you wrong -- since the courts universally rule that they have no legal obligation to do so -- but you face some difficult moral quandaries. How can you rightfully ask another human being to risk his life to protect yours, when you will assume no responsibility yourself?...One who values his life and takes seriously his responsibilities to his family and community will possess and cultivate the means of fighting back...He will never be content to rely solely on others for his safety, or to think he has done all that is possible by being aware of his surroundings and taking measures of avoidance.

What Snyder wrote applies essentially to every situation under the sun, not just thieves in the night or bad dudes in an alley but bureaucrats in lab coats and college faculty in sport coats. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

But for a moment, consider the 19-year old in college. They saw this notice on their college's website: Quinnipiac is requiring all students, faculty and staff be vaccinated against COVID-19 to participate in the fall 2021 semester. Medical and religious exemptions will be granted upon review and were due by July 6, 2021.

Does this student - or their parent for that matter - possess the mindset Snyder references? The exemption process is likely (and intentionally) not easy...that alone will deter the most casual opponents of the shots. In fact, I bet the college will offer information and links and all but administer the shot to the kids directly if they go that route.

There will be no such support for the exemption-seekers. Not only do they need the will to persevere through this exemption process (which will probably include unjust queries, e.g. what kind of religion do you practice?), but in many ways they need a robust post-apocalyptic skill set.

Alas, as the meme goes, one does not simply become Deplorable over night. Sure, it's easy for people to see the immorality of what's going on. It's also easy to say "no, I'm not getting vaxxed." But, as difficult as it may be for people who've had a Framer's mindset all their life, noobs don't just follow up that new attitude with the ninja-like thought process and access to information to facilitate a successful redpilling in an instant. That process takes some time, and as the college noted the exemptions were due a while ago. This isn't easy for freshly-minted lovers of liberty.

The mildly freedom-curious student or parent, lacking skills and tools, will give up. Don't criticize them for caving; more on them later - they're important in the long-run.

For those kids who either already have - or are backed by parents with - Snyder's mindset and Diana's tag line, they will climb through the muck and mire of the exemption process successfully. Based on this article, they are the Ten Percenters. Those are the first-line future of our nation.

But the road ahead will not be easy for them. Yes, I know...it wasn't easy for us. At least when we were young, civil society tolerated rebellious youth. These kids will not be celebrated or championed by the universities. Indeed, these free-thinkers who were previously held up by leftist society as the future of the country, are now ridiculed and doxxed.

"Question Authority" has morphed into "Obey Authority".

Because we need to grow the ranks, those liberty-curious kids and parents who wanted an exemption but lost this battle because they don't have Diana's skill set, do not beat them up. Quite the contrary, they need to be brought into the fold. This vaccination thing won't be he last battle, and while these neophytes don't have liberty reflexes today, we need to get them to build those muscles asap.

The silver lining in all this, is found if you read between the lines of this article. This incredible opposition thrown up by the statists to someone standing athwart the political science of vaccinations and saying "halt", really reveals how much they fear us.

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