Mostly unneeded and possibly dangerous

An astonishing number of college and universities are requiring their students to get COVID-19 vaccinations before returning to school this fall. (See the list here.)

This insane.

This one-size-fits-all defies science and can jeopardize the health of students.

Consider the student who had contracted COVID-19 and is protected by the virus’s antibodies. She still must get a vaccination. Imagine your child being required to get vaccinated for mumps after having had mumps.

It makes no sense. I have a grandchild who had Covid-19, but to get back into her college this fall she must have a vaccination. Where is the science that says that it is safe to have a Covid-19 vaccination if you’re already had the illness?

Or how about those who did not know they had it because the disease often is asymptomatic? She’ll have the antibodies; what will happen when she gets the vaccine that produces more antibodies?

Her school puts out a blanket order, even though health care is an individual matter, with every person being different. Nonetheless, her school requires every students to be “fully vaccinated before arriving on campus.” [Emphasis added.]

If the student fails to submit a vaccination card (read: passport), she’ll be unable to move into her residence hall, attend class and so forth. She can apply for undefined “medical or religious exemptions” that “are supported by individual documentation.” Not sure what that would be.

The science doesn’t support this heavy-handed approach. Reports the Wall Street Journal, “In Children, Risk of Covid-19 Death or Serious Illness Remains Extremely Low, New Studies Find. The findings come from some of the most comprehensive research on the risks of the coronavirus for those 18 years and younger.”

Children are at extremely slim risk of dying from Covid-19, according to some of the most comprehensive studies to date, which indicate the threat might be even lower than previously thought. 

Some 99.995% of the 469,982 children in England who were infected during the year examined by researchers survived, one study found.

In fact, there were fewer deaths among children due to the virus than initially suspected. Among the 61 child deaths linked to a positive Covid-19 test in England, 25 were actually caused by the illness, the study found. [Emphasis added.]

I wonder how that compares with deaths from the flu. Here are a couple of scientists who warn against vaccinating children and young adults, in “The ill-advised push to vaccinate the young.”

The idea that everyone must be vaccinated against COVID-19 is as misguided as the anti-vax idea that no one should. The former is more dangerous for public health….

First, all medical interventions should pass the test of providing more benefits than risks. For the COVID vaccine, this is decidedly true for older populations but it is not yet clear for younger people. While we know that COVID vaccines have common but mild adverse reactions, we will not know enough about rare but serious adverse reactions until a few years after vaccine approval….

Even a slight risk of a serious vaccine adverse reaction could tip the benefit-risk calculation, making the vaccine more harmful than beneficial. We have already observed rare problems with blood clots (J&J vaccine) and myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle, Pfizer and Moderna) in younger people, and additional equally serious issues might still be found.

Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised anymore at what emerges from today’s PC and woke-infested institutions of lower learning. Still, it should be startling that so many colleges and universities, where science should be respected, can be so prone to group think.

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