Vaccine mandate would cause more harm than good

By Jack Rybak, Core Staff

The list of problems that the Covid-19 Pandemic has caused at SLUH is a long one: annoying masks, remote learning, a lack of class and club involvement, to name a few. All of us want to return to a state of normalcy by ending this pandemic, and with the development of the Covid-19 vaccine, an end is in sight. However, a school-mandated vaccine would cause more harm than good.

While the vaccine is most certainly the fastest and most effective way to end this pandemic, forcing students to take the vaccine would, I believe, result in extreme backlash from families. Additionally, shouldn’t the students of SLUH have the choice of what vaccines they get? While the school does require immunization for other diseases such as smallpox, the differences between smallpox and Covid-19 must be acknowledged. Our World in Data estimated that roughly five million people died from smallpox each year, making it deadlier than the Covid-19 virus. Additionally, the smallpox vaccine also underwent more testing and was headed by the World Health Organization. 

Within SLUH, over 74 percent of students have received both doses of the vaccine without using a vaccine mandate, a 11 percent increase in the one week since school has started. In addition, 90 percent of faculty have received both doses of the vaccine. These numbers will only continue to increase with time, resulting in a natural fully vaccinated community. This strategy will allow the school to avoid any problems a mandate could potentially cause. 

Many will argue that requiring the vaccination would speed up the process of reaching a fully vaccinated school. However, the time it would take to get students and faculty fully vaccinated would be at least 21 days for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and 28 days for the Moderna vaccine. A 21-day minimum for a fully-vaccinated status assumes that all unvaccinated students and faculty received the vaccine at once, which is unlikely. Another common counterargument is that having the vaccine would reduce the spread of the virus, but that may not be the case. According to the CDC, even fully vaccinated people can become infected with the Delta variant and can spread the virus to others.  

With the number of students and faculty fully vaccinated increasing and the number of positive cases decreasing, the end of the pandemic is in sight. The requirement of the vaccine would only bring about problems for the school. The easiest solution to end the pandemic would be to continue to encourage the students to get fully vaccinated.

SLUH must mandate vaccines to overcome pandemic

By Luke Duffy, Web Editor

Overcoming Covid-19 has been the singular focus of the SLUH community since March of 2020. We have endured strenuous Zoom calls, uncomfortable masks, and painstaking sanitation for an entire school year. Our collective goal is to bring an end to this pandemic, and the easiest way to accomplish this is vaccinating the entire SLUH community.

While the vaccination campaign has made tremendous progress in the United States, the Covid-19 Delta variant is spreading rapidly. Missouri Covid-19 cases spiked in July with a 185 percent increase between July 1 and August 1 and have since plateaued. St. Louis is not much better: cases in the city increased by 150 percent during the month of July and have not dwindled since.

So what is the best way to prevent Covid from spreading? Getting vaccinated. Although there have been many breakthrough cases, most vaccinated people who get Covid will be asymptomatic or have very light cases. According to the CDC, only 0.005% of vaccinated people to get Covid have been hospitalized or died.

Given the evidence of the vaccine’s efficacy, the rate of vaccination in our region is pitiful when compared to the rest of the country. St. Louis City is only 45.1 percent  vaccinated, and St. Louis County is only 54.1 percent. Within our SLUH community, 74 percent of students are vaccinated. While this figure has increased significantly in the past weeks, we can and should do better. 

The major counterargument to schools requiring vaccines is that students should have the freedom to decide whether they get a vaccine. However, SLUH already requires students to be vaccinated for other diseases. If we have to be vaccinated for measles and smallpox, why shouldn’t we have to be vaccinated for Covid-19?

Additionally, many opponents to vaccine requirements say that since the vaccines are under emergency use authorization they are less trustworthy. Not only have all of the vaccines proved highly preventive against Covid infections and symptoms, the Pfizer-Biontech vaccine received full F.D.A. approval on Monday, Aug. 23 for everyone 16 and older. It is completely irrational to doubt the efficacy and credibility of the Pfizer vaccine, and this reinforces the necessity for a vaccine mandate.

This pandemic is not over, but we are in the final stride and nearing the end of a horrible chapter for the human race. With firm leadership, SLUH could say goodbye to the Covid-19 pandemic for good. We must all get vaccinated.