Universities are not operating as physicians or investigators. They are not conducting medical studies. Studies of vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 have been carried out and are ongoing. At least one of the vaccines will go up for full approval by the FDA in the near future.
It is possible that adverse effects will emerge that have not yet been seen. It ought to be policy that folks with a plausible claim to injury by vaccination have recourse to compensation, as through the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP); I think it is an oversight that vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 have not been included in its purview.
Although the individual risk of COVID-19 infection to younger people is significantly lower than in older people, this is not a medically homogeneous population. There are nontrivial numbers of college-aged people with chronic medical problems who are at greater risk. Moreover, those students will encounter people of a wide variety of ages, with a great variety of medical comorbidities, while on-campus.
Vaccination against communicable disease is a public good as much as an individual good. That a given person may not benefit from vaccination is not an argument against it. So long as the risk of injury is substantially lower than the probability of an individual benefit and there is a significant public health benefit, a strong utilitarian as well as deontological argument can be made for compelling vaccination.
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[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 21.6 ms ] threadIt is possible that adverse effects will emerge that have not yet been seen. It ought to be policy that folks with a plausible claim to injury by vaccination have recourse to compensation, as through the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP); I think it is an oversight that vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 have not been included in its purview.
Although the individual risk of COVID-19 infection to younger people is significantly lower than in older people, this is not a medically homogeneous population. There are nontrivial numbers of college-aged people with chronic medical problems who are at greater risk. Moreover, those students will encounter people of a wide variety of ages, with a great variety of medical comorbidities, while on-campus.
Vaccination against communicable disease is a public good as much as an individual good. That a given person may not benefit from vaccination is not an argument against it. So long as the risk of injury is substantially lower than the probability of an individual benefit and there is a significant public health benefit, a strong utilitarian as well as deontological argument can be made for compelling vaccination.