Punxsutawney Phil has emerged from his tree stump home and told us that there would be six more weeks of winter, but I don’t think even he could have predicted how poorly Ohio University is currently following through on its vaccine mandate.
On Aug. 31, 2021, OU announced it would be requiring all students, faculty and staff at all OHIO locations to receive the COVID-19 vaccine by Nov. 15, 2021. Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and vaccines on the World Health Organization Emergency Use Listing would all be accepted, and readily available opportunities to get vaccinated were shared with students, faculty and staff. As people received their vaccines, they were instructed to upload documentation of their vaccination status via the Testing Pathway Program. An exemption from getting vaccinated for medical, religious, moral and ethical reasons was made available but required approval from the university.
According to a Feb. 1 public health update from OU, 88.5% of all students, faculty and staff are vaccinated across all campuses. The Athens campus has the highest overall vaccination rate at 91%. A Nov. 16, 2021, university report celebrating the high vaccination rate across all campuses stated that only about 9% of OU students and faculty had not received an approved exemption or submitted proof of their vaccination. At the time, the report said the overall vaccination rate at the time was 83.6%.
9% may seem like a very small number of people not in compliance, but when the numbers are actually broken down, it’s a significant number of people. As of Jan. 26, 56 students who live on campus and 188 students who live off campus don’t have an approved exemption, according to a previous Post report.
The first laboratory-confirmed outbreak of COVID-19 occurred because at least 41 reportedly tested positive; 244 students — a number almost six times as many as that — who are not vaccinated and without exemptions are currently attending classes and participating in campus life. Not only does this put each other at risk for getting COVID-19 but still puts those who are vaccinated and even got the booster shot for getting sick.
OU could have chosen reasonable consequences for those who did follow the rules of the mandate to suffer. Oh, wait, it did. They just weren’t enforced.
In the initial statement from OU President Hugh Sherman announcing the vaccine mandate, he wrote, “All students must be vaccinated or granted an exemption in order to participate in any spring semester in-person activities, including face-to-face instruction and residence life, at any location.”
Considering the amount of effort that was put into ensuring students were able to be in accordance with the vaccine mandate, one would think there would be more follow-through on the consequences laid out for those who did not follow the rules. Instead, the university opted to require non-compliant students to be tested for COVID-19 every week.
While the same is also required of all others living in on-campus housing, students’ health is still being put at risk.
As previously mentioned, even students who are vaccinated or have gotten a booster shot can still contract COVID-19. Symptoms are typically mild in those cases. However, there is a lot of anxiety around getting COVID-19 because of having to quarantine. There is also the remaining fear from before vaccines were available to lessen the likelihood of having severe symptoms or even death.
It’s already frustrating enough that misinformation has been spread to the point that it has deterred people from getting vaccinated, but the pandemic is never going to end if there are no consequences for not complying with a mandate that was meant to give people a sense of relief and safety.
Announcing the vaccine mandate when the university did was smart. Other universities were announcing similar mandates, and it felt like a step in the direction of the pandemic ending because it meant that so many people would be protected against COVID-19. With the emergence of the omicron variant at the end of 2021 leading to high numbers of cases, non-compliant students should not have been permitted back on campus.
It’s disappointing to see how OU chickened out of sticking to its word and instead supplied Bobcats with unnecessary stress in a matter of protecting both their physical and mental well-being. They shouldn’t have to get sick or stress themselves out over possibly getting sick because of others’ actions. OU needs to practice what it preaches and actually "Make Respect Visible."
Tate Raub is a sophomore studying journalism at Ohio University. Please note that the views and opinions of the columnists do not reflect those of The Post. Want to talk more about it? Let Tate know by tweeting her @tatertot1310.
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