Some Virginia college students worried about end of coronavirus vaccine mandates - The Washington Post

Coronavirus vaccines — and more specifically, vaccine mandates — have been an integral part of the reopening plans on college campuses throughout the country. At one point in Virginia, more than a dozen public universities were requiring students and employees to get their doses.

But recent changes in the state’s government have complicated that strategy. Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who took office last month, ordered state agencies, including public colleges and universities, to stop requiring employees to be vaccinated. Attorney General Jason S. Miyares later issued a legal opinion that public campuses are not authorized to impose vaccination mandates for students.

The changes were a blow to students who have been pushing leaders to take additional safety precautions during the pandemic. Meanwhile, groups who considered the mandates unconstitutional have praised the latest actions.

“It’s definitely a step in the wrong direction,” said Gian Tigreros, a junior at Virginia Commonwealth University. Tigreros, organizing under the Instagram handle @walkoutvcu, helped lead a demonstration in late January during which students called on the school to offer hybrid learning options for all spring classes. It drew about 30 attendees, and more than 1,100 people have signed a petition.

Tigreros said that since Miyares’s opinion was issued, he continues to receive messages on Instagram from students who are immunocompromised, work in care settings with unvaccinated children, or are just nervous about attending in-person classes.

“What’s next, are they going to take back the masks?” he asked “It’s really heartbreaking. People are getting sick.”

Michael Porter, a spokesperson for the Richmond campus, said the university considers factors including available hospital beds and the amount of space on campus for isolation and quarantine when making decisions about the pandemic. And with the exception of classes where students work independently with their professor, 51 percent of classes at VCU are being offered face-to-face this semester. The remaining 49 percent are either fully online or hybrid, Porter said.

He added the campus is highly vaccinated, with more than 97 percent of employees and 95 percent of students having received their shots.

But Tigreros wonders what will happen after the current school year. Next semester will “introduce a whole new set of people [to campus], so that percentage is going to keep going down and down,” Tigreros said.

Among the first Virginia universities to roll back its vaccine mandate was George Mason University, the state’s largest public research university, with more than 38,000 students. The change came hours after the attorney general’s opinion was issued.

“We want to be in alignment with the leaders of our state,” said Gregory Washington, the university’s president. He added: “We were always under some pressure by a segment of our students and staff and faculty to remove the mandate.”

Roughly 93 percent of the campus community has been vaccinated, meaning the school’s mandate has largely done its job, Washington said. Still, some students say rolling back the mandate runs counter to the measures George Mason has taken at various points throughout the pandemic — enforcing mask usage, banning large gatherings and disciplining students who breach safety protocols.

“It just came out of left field,” said Benjamin Mawyer, a senior studying management information systems. “I think Mason had kind of achieved sort of its own bubble, having the vast majority of campus vaccinated.”

Others support the change. The New Civil Liberties Alliance, which recently sent a letter to George Mason officials on behalf of a student and professor who wanted the school to rescind its vaccine booster mandate for students, welcomed the university’s decision to reverse its mandate.

“NCLA hopes other universities will follow suit and recognize that booster mandates, especially for young people and those who have just recovered from COVID-19, are unconstitutional, unethical, and unsupported by the science,” said Jenin Younes, litigation counsel for the civil rights organization.

The American College Health Association, a group of campus health professionals, recommends that school leaders require students to vaccinated.

The University of Virginia said Monday it will stop threatening to disenroll students who do not have booster shots this semester.

“I think it’s irresponsible,” said Gaby Hernandez, a third-year student studying global development studies. She co-leads the Political Latinxs United for Movement and Action in Society, or PLUMAs, which has been vocal about the campus’s safety protocols.

U-Va. reported that more than 99 percent of students complied with the previous vaccine and booster requirements.

Still, students said they will continue to push for changes, including more hybrid learning options, prevalence testing and leniency from professors when they have to miss class. “We’re essentially encouraging students to show up if they’re sick, or else they’ll risk the chance of having their grades drop or not doing will in the course at all,” said Josue Castillo, a third-year student and organizer with Central Americans for Empowerment, also known as CAFE.

“It’s just been giving another layer of anxiety for students who are low-income, for students who are immunocompromised, for students who don’t have the resources that more affluent students have at this university.”

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Some Virginia college students worried about end of coronavirus vaccine mandates - The Washington Post
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