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Post by longsuffering on Jul 26, 2021 22:47:52 GMT -5
Will Holy Cross students, who are not vaccinated, be allowed to participate as a member of a Holy Cross athletic team this upcoming school year? Does anyone have a definitive answer...not speculation. If I was a member of TPTB I would vote no because the Delta variant is so transmissible you need to have the vaccine to at least slow it down. It's possible, but a low probability that athletes have a medical condition that allows them to play a D-1 sport but not take this vaccine. The Pope has said there is no Catholic religious objection to the vaccine and I haven't heard of any other major religion saying this vaccine is contrary to their faith. I also don't think any coach would like unvaccinated players to jeopardize the whole team's season.
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Jul 27, 2021 6:08:55 GMT -5
As of yesterday, 94 percent of the students reported they had been vaccinated. The college had acknowledged several months ago that international students might have difficulty getting vaccinated in their home country and would be vaccinated after arriving in the U. S. So the percentage of U.S. students who are already vaccinated is probably higher than 94 percent.
Over the past two weeks, the college has done over 900 tests of those on campus, with one positive: a staff person. I believe the college does not mandate that faculty and staff be vaccinated.
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Jul 27, 2021 6:27:52 GMT -5
Those who perceive COVID as a risk to their health and well-being are getting vaccinated, regardless of their place of residence, political persuasion, religious belief, trust / distrust in science.
Percent vaccinated with at least one shot. U.S. / MA Adults ages 75 and over 87 / 91 Ages 65-74 91 / 93 Ages 50-64 75 / 85
The drop-off in ages 75+ may reflect individuals who are largely homebound, and the vaccinator must visit them, rather than the other way-round.
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Jul 27, 2021 6:42:25 GMT -5
Re: deaths of the fully vaccinated in MA. Massachusetts instituted a reporting system in May for hospitalizations and deaths of vaccinated individuals. The reporting form asks for reporting on what COVID symptoms were present, and also requires reporting of several co-morbidities, e.g., diabetes, chronic pulmonary disease, if the individual suffered from such.
The CDC's national reporting system, which has recorded over 5,000 deaths of vaccinated individuals, notes that over 20 percent of the recorded deaths are of individuals who were asymptomatic at the time of death.
There is a bit of apples and oranges in the what the two reports cover, but the systems illustrate that not everyone who died after being vaccinated or who became infected with COVID post-vaccination was hospitalized or died solely because of COVID or the vaccination..
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Post by hcpride on Jul 27, 2021 7:07:06 GMT -5
As of yesterday, 94 percent of the students reported they had been vaccinated. The college had acknowledged several months ago that international students might have difficulty getting vaccinated in their home country and would be vaccinated after arriving in the U. S. So the percentage of U.S. students who are already vaccinated is probably higher than 94 percent. Over the past two weeks, the college has done over 900 tests of those on campus, with one positive: a staff person. I believe the college does not mandate that faculty and staff be vaccinated. Perhaps the kids will be unmasked, in class, and restriction free to start the year on campus. Although it is, of course, possible that an unmasked fully vaccinated student with the virus passes it on to a vulnerable person (fully vaccinated or not) who then could be hospitalized or die from Covid. Certainly, given the possibilities (remote or otherwise), a whole range of options are available for the admins to impose. As we saw last year.
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Post by efg72 on Jul 27, 2021 7:38:02 GMT -5
Washington Post
People are more anti-vaccine if they get their covid news from Facebook rather than from Fox News, data shows Biden said social media companies are ‘killing people’ by spreading vaccine misinformation
By David Lazer, Jon Green, Katherine Ognyanova, Matthew Baum, Jennifer Lin, James Druckman, Roy Perlis, Mauricio Santillana, Matthew Simonson and Ata Uslu Today at 7:45 a.m. EDT
0 The White House has been sharply critical of how social media has helped circulate misinformation about coronavirus vaccines. President Biden put it bluntly when he said, “They’re killing people.” The day after Biden’s statement, Facebook posted a blog entry asserting that it isn’t responsible for U.S. vaccination rates leveling off. The company emphasized that, in a large survey by Carnegie Mellon, supported by Facebook, 85 percent of Facebook users reported being vaccinated or wanting to be vaccinated.
It’s hard to say who is right in this heated debate. Survey data can’t prove conclusively whether using Facebook affects vaccine acceptance and resistance. However, the data can indicate whether people who get their news from Facebook have higher or lower vaccination rates than those who don’t. In the Covid States Project survey we conducted, we find a surprisingly strong relationship. If you rely on Facebook to get news and information about the coronavirus, you are substantially less likely than the average American to say you have been vaccinated.
In fact, Facebook news consumers are less likely to be vaccinated than people who get their coronavirus information from Fox News.
Facebook’s rebuttal is unconvincing
While it’s hard to establish whether Biden is right, Facebook’s rebuttal doesn’t provide convincing evidence that he is wrong. It doesn’t compare Facebook users with nonusers, which could help us understand whether there is a meaningful difference in the two groups’ attitudes. More important, it doesn’t talk about the vaccination rates among people who don’t just use Facebook but actually get their coronavirus-related information from it.
People use Facebook for many reasons. Only some go to the platform specifically to get news and information about the coronavirus. These are the people the Biden administration worries are at risk of exposure to vaccine misinformation. It’s important to know how many of those people are out there and whether they are more or less likely to be vaccinated than others.
Why Facebook really, really doesn't want to discourage extremism
Many Americans rely on Facebook for coronavirus news
Our Covid States Project has used large-scale surveys to track coronavirus-related issues since the start of the pandemic. The results below are based on a non-probability online sample of 20,699 Americans from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. We apply state-level demographic quotas and weight the data to match the U.S. population with respect to race, ethnicity, age, gender, education, region and residence in urban, suburban or rural areas. In June and July, we asked respondents whether they got any coronavirus news from Facebook, CNN, Fox, MSNBC, the Biden administration or Newsmax.
The figure above shows the percentage of respondents who got news about the coronavirus from each of those sources in the 24 hours before completing our survey. Respondents could select multiple sources, which is why the bars add up to more than 100 percent. We find that Facebook is a major source of information about the coronavirus, comparable to Fox News and CNN.
People who rely on Facebook are less likely to say they’ve been vaccinated
We also asked the respondents whether they had been vaccinated, whether they might get vaccinated in the future or alternatively whether they would not get vaccinated.
Respondents who get news about the coronavirus via Facebook are less likely to get vaccinated than the average American and than non-Facebook users. Sixty-one percent of those Facebook users said they had been vaccinated, vs. 68 percent of the eligible U.S. population and 71 percent of non-Facebook users. The relationship was stronger for those who said that they had received coronavirus news or information only from Facebook and not from any of the other sources mentioned. Sixteen percent of all respondents fall into this category, and only 47 percent of them report being vaccinated, with 25 percent saying they will not get vaccinated.
Strikingly, those who relied exclusively on Facebook reported lower vaccination rates and higher vaccine resistance than those who rely exclusively on the often vaccine-critical Fox News. Newsmax was the only information source we examined that had lower levels of vaccination and higher vaccine resistance than Facebook, among people who rely on it for information. According to our data, Facebook users were also among the most likely to believe false claims about coronavirus vaccines.
We're seeing what happens when the FDA loses credibility
This pattern holds, even when we look for other explanations
We further tested whether these patterns were a misleading byproduct of demographic factors. For example, people who largely get their news from Facebook might be younger and hence less likely to be vaccinated, independent of their news consumption. We used standard statistical techniques to evaluate this possibility, as you can see here.
Even after accounting for demographic and other differences, we still find that getting coronavirus-related news from Facebook — especially when it’s exclusively from Facebook — is associated with lower vaccination levels and higher levels of vaccine resistance. That relationship is stronger only with Newsmax, which is a much less commonly used source.
What this all means
We cannot definitively conclude that Facebook caused individuals to choose not to get vaccinated. People who rely heavily on Facebook for news might differ from the rest of the population in a number of other ways. For instance, people who rely on Facebook are less trusting of the news media and other institutions, from government agencies to science. Only 37 percent of the people who got coronavirus news only from Facebook report trusting the news media “some” or “a lot,” compared with 47 percent for everyone else.
Perhaps vaccine skeptics rely more on Facebook because they distrust the media. Alternatively, they may distrust the media because of what they are exposed to on Facebook. Again, our data cannot conclusively disentangle cause and effect.
While we can’t say that Biden is right in claiming that Facebook is actually “killing” people, we find that relying on Facebook’s informational environment is associated with lower trust in institutions, lower vaccination rates and higher vaccine resistance. We need further research to figure out what content people are consuming on the platform and whether it may be affecting their behavior.
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Jul 27, 2021 8:15:46 GMT -5
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Post by longsuffering on Jul 27, 2021 8:30:12 GMT -5
Does HC have a right to know which faculty/staff have been vaccinated and which haven't? The NFL apparently does. It helps apply appropriate work place safety rules for each group.
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Jul 27, 2021 9:24:02 GMT -5
Does HC have a right to know which faculty/staff have been vaccinated and which haven't? The NFL apparently does. It helps apply appropriate work place safety rules for each group. I thought HC was encouraging faculty and staff to be vaccinated. Not so.
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Post by longsuffering on Jul 27, 2021 9:50:51 GMT -5
Does HC have a right to know which faculty/staff have been vaccinated and which haven't? The NFL apparently does. It helps apply appropriate work place safety rules for each group. I thought HC was encouraging faculty and staff to be vaccinated. Not so. I like that. If it's legal, that's the way to knock this scourge of a virus out..
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Post by nycrusader2010 on Jul 27, 2021 10:16:06 GMT -5
I thought HC was encouraging faculty and staff to be vaccinated. Not so. I like that. If it's legal, that's the way to knock this scourge of a virus out.. Agreed. HC is a private institution. I dont see why they couldn't require this.
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Jul 27, 2021 10:45:17 GMT -5
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Post by Tom on Jul 27, 2021 10:50:11 GMT -5
This is a change in the policy. We have discussed before why the students could be required to be vaccinated but not employees. My thought at the time was that things could get sticky terminating a long term employee who didn't want to be injected with something not approved by the FDA
Under the category of "made me look", I found this on the HC website today
.I still think things could get tricky if an employee is strongly opposed to receiving the vaccine
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Post by efg72 on Jul 27, 2021 10:56:51 GMT -5
COVID-19 Media Advisory For Immediate Release, Tuesday, July 27, 2021 Contact: Media Relations (404) 639-3286 What The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will provide an update to media on the COVID-19 pandemic. Who Rochelle P. Walensky, MD, MPH, Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention When 3:00 p.m. ET Tuesday, July 27, 2021 Dial-In Media: 888-323-2714 International: 1-773-756-4809 PASSCODE: CDC MEDIA Non-Media: 888-381-5770 International: 1-517-308-9447 PASSCODE: 8494852 Important Instructions Due to anticipated high volume, please plan to dial in to the telebriefing 15 minutes before the start time. Media: If you would like to ask a question during the call, press *1 on your touchtone phone. Press *2 to withdraw your question. You may queue up at any time. You will hear a tone to indicate your question is pending. Transcript A transcript will be available following the briefing at CDC’s web site: www.cdc.gov/media.
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Post by nycrusader2010 on Jul 27, 2021 11:25:38 GMT -5
This is a change in the policy. We have discussed before why the students could be required to be vaccinated but not employees. My thought at the time was that things could get sticky terminating a long term employee who didn't want to be injected with something not approved by the FDA Under the category of "made me look", I found this on the HC website today .I still think things could get tricky if an employee is strongly opposed to receiving the vaccine Sounds like the kind of thing you could easily require of new employees but might get messy trying to terminate existing employees over the refusal.
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Post by hcpride on Jul 27, 2021 12:10:02 GMT -5
No doubt this is the printed plan (and subject to change): One CDC guideline reportedly coming out later today - is " CDC will recommend everyone in K-12 schools wear a mask -- regardless of vaccination status -- in new guidance" www.cnn.com/2021/07/27/politics/cdc-mask-guidance/index.html. One could see HC adopting this for in-class instruction (even if 90% are vaccinated). Also from the CNN article (and this may impact some other HC rules irrespective of vaccination rates): A senior administration official said the decision was spurred by the more transmissible Delta variant.
"It's based on the fact that the Delta variant is clearly more transmissible than the prior ones," the official said.
New evidence found that the levels of virus found in breakthrough cases among the vaccinated people are similar to those found in unvaccinated individuals who contract coronavirus, raising concerns that vaccinated individuals may be able to spread the virus, the official said.
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Post by bfoley82 on Jul 27, 2021 14:26:56 GMT -5
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Post by efg72 on Jul 27, 2021 14:48:34 GMT -5
While I disagree, this decision should come as no surprise given WH/CDC/AFT connection
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Post by longsuffering on Jul 27, 2021 15:10:24 GMT -5
While I disagree, this decision should come as no surprise given WH/CDC/AFT connection Disagree or agree, this "decision" is only a recommendation. I hope the CDC has a few Doctors that still treat patients because all that fence sitting can cause injury. In Democracies like New Zealand the national government makes a clear decision, not a recommendation and everybody gets on the same page and complies.
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Jul 27, 2021 15:37:22 GMT -5
I don't believe the CDC can mandate anything. The mandated wearing of masks on public transportation was promulgated by the departments of Transportation and Homeland Security. Individual Federal agencies can mandate mask-wearing on Federal property, including schools run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
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Post by efg72 on Jul 27, 2021 15:50:08 GMT -5
I believe it is merely guidance with final decisions for schools made at the state and local level-- will read and share the transcript once it is posted
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Post by hcpride on Jul 27, 2021 16:06:06 GMT -5
The agency also called for universal masking for all teachers, staff members and students in schools, regardless of their vaccination status.
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said the changes were spurred by “worrisome” new data showing that vaccinated and unvaccinated people infected by the delta variant carry viral loads that “are actually quite similar." That suggests that some vaccinated people “may be contagious and spread the virus to others" even though they are unlikely to become severely ill because of the vaccines’ protection. Such transmission did not happen in any significant way with earlier strains.
www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/07/27/cdc-masks-guidance-indoors/Even thought the CDC guidance may be aimed at k-12 schools, wouldn't shock me if HC does the classroom mask-up of the fully vaccinated. At the same time the idea of fully vaccinated young folks wearing masks might strike some as curious ( and counter-productive to the administration's vaccine push)..
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Post by Crucis#1 on Jul 27, 2021 16:36:30 GMT -5
This is a change in the policy. We have discussed before why the students could be required to be vaccinated but not employees. My thought at the time was that things could get sticky terminating a long term employee who didn't want to be injected with something not approved by the FDA Under the category of "made me look", I found this on the HC website today .I still think things could get tricky if an employee is strongly opposed to receiving the vaccine Sounds like the kind of thing you could easily require of new employees but might get messy trying to terminate existing employees over the refusal. How about an athlete? Should the college require that all team members regardless of merit or need base status, or full pay be required to have completed the vaccination protocols? Even if they have already had Covid and recovered? Will they have antibodies to Delta and possible new variations to Covid 19? Difficult decisions to be made over the next couple of weeks when health assessments are being made for the fall and winter rosters. Let’s hope there is logic to be followed regarding compliance as not to disrupt team performance.
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Post by nycrusader2010 on Jul 27, 2021 16:54:55 GMT -5
While I disagree, this decision should come as no surprise given WH/CDC/AFT connection Disagree or agree, this "decision" is only a recommendation. I hope the CDC has a few Doctors that still treat patients because all that fence sitting can cause injury. In Democracies like New Zealand the national government makes a clear decision, not a recommendation and everybody gets on the same page and complies. As a fully vaccinated person, I will not be wesring a mask indoors or out unless the city of New York mandates it, or if individual businesses require to enter. Being vaccinated but continuing to wesr a mask is nothing but theatre.
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Post by newfieguy74 on Jul 27, 2021 17:22:36 GMT -5
And are the 5000+ vaccinated Americans who have died from Covid just actors in the theater?
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