The COVID-19 pandemic is, in many ways, emblematic of the American ideal. We have persisted through and adapted to the challenges we’ve faced, both as individuals navigating an unforgiving new world, and as a society, pioneering new scientific techniques, transforming our economy, and implementing radical new ideas of public policy.
Here at WashU, our community has innovated through the pandemic, developing the saliva tests we use, coordinating mutual aid funds for those who need it the most, and evaluating innovative grading policies. We’ve been able to support our community in ways many schools did not. (Oberlin, where I transferred from, implemented an Orwellian state of control and shut down nearly all social activity, resulting in extremely low COVID-19 transmission rates). We did a great job of adapting the restrictions from March to September. Then vaccine distribution began, almost every vulnerable community member has been vaccinated, and a significant portion of the student body has been vaccinated. During that whole time, WashU has not updated or modified any restrictions at all.
WashU’s failure to tie coronavirus restrictions to CDC policy presents a significant threat to public health.
That’s right, WashU has not changed a thing about their COVID-19 restrictions as vulnerable community members and students have been vaccinated. There are a few exceptions. WashU did increase restrictions on pods and athletes, close buildings to reduce study space for students, and defunded student groups in the spring, even after many students received the vaccine. WashU has not updated the restrictions as we fulfilled our goal of protecting vulnerable community members, as new scientific data was released, and even as the CDC eased restrictions. This failure disincentivizes vaccine adoption, fuels arguments by vaccine skeptics, threatens community mental health, and incentivizes high-risk behaviors. WashU’s failure to tie coronavirus restrictions to CDC policy presents a significant threat to public health.
WashU’s administration has clearly stated on multiple occasions that it wants students to get the vaccine. This currently requires navigating stressful registration queues, last-minute car dashes, expensive Uber rides, and sometimes 10-hour volunteer shifts. (The process of getting the vaccine is a lot like the game show The Amazing Race, except it’s a lot less amazing). The second shot can lead to a 48 hour bout of sickness. For many WashU students, being sick, and therefore potentially losing study time for a couple of days, is a strong disincentive. To incentivize students to get vaccinated, WashU has done nothing, at all. Despite the clear public health benefits of vaccination, WashU’s COVID-19 policies remain entirely the same. The new vaccine requirement announced by Chancellor Martin for Fall 2021 says nothing of uploading or verification and allows broad exceptions.
The main issue, though, is that WashU is pretending the vaccine doesn’t work through rhetoric and policy. I spoke to a vaccine skeptic who cited WashU’s own claims that all virus-related restrictions should remain even though vaccination prevents 100% of serious illness or death. The vaccine does work (data from Israel shows a 99% reduction in transmission with just 57% of the population immune), but the skeptic argued that if the vaccine was effective, WashU would reduce restrictions for those who had it. Even among vaccine believers, I heard similar concerns. Getting the vaccine is difficult, time-consuming, and sickness-inducing, and the lack of a policy update means vaccinated students don’t benefit in any way. An administration email from Provost Beverly Wendland explicitly laid this out: “regardless of how many individuals on campus have received the vaccine, we will NOT be changing our public health requirements.” This was a great way to make sure nobody bothers to get the vaccine, presenting a much more credible threat to public health than (masked and distanced) golf or in-person office hours, which are both cancelled. A few carefully planned policies could solve these problems, motivate people to get vaccinated, and protect our community.
A key example is quarantine. WashU’s quarantine process, which is 14 days although the CDC recommends just seven, is disruptive, excessive, and harmful to students’ mental health. According to CDC guidelines, asymptomatic vaccinated people do not have to quarantine for any length of time. Quarantine, which at WashU involves confinement to a 200 square foot room with a view of a parking garage for fourteen straight days (while being billed $350 for the privilege), is one of the most abhorred restrictions on campus. Students would get the shot just to protect themselves from quarantine—if WashU decides to abide by CDC policy.
According to the CDC, there are a number of other inconveniences vaccinated students can skip. They don’t have to get tested (for off-campus students this would save two hours per month), screen for symptoms, or wear a mask and social distance (except at large gatherings or among unvaccinated groups of people). The distancing requirement has been used to close most campus buildings, depriving students of vital academic resources and replacing them with depressing study cubicles. (The ban on talking in the cubicles makes them unusable for Zoom, leaving most vacant). Ironically, closing off spaces has increased density in the few open spaces, increasing risk. The administration sometimes claims to care about risk only when it is convenient. They cite masks and distancing to eliminate almost all student activities, even those that abide by COVID-19 safety guidelines.
Despite policies on the books allowing 10 person indoor events (masked and distanced) or 25 person distanced outdoor events, WashU has defunded student groups and banned almost all events categorically, without assessing their risk level. Only student groups with full-time staff members have been able to hold events, which, according to one staff member, means that we have shut down approximately 98.5% of student groups this year. This aggressive shutdown of events is harming student mental health and creating incentives to attend parties. People have partied despite expulsion threats because there’s nothing else to do. The return of fun social events, regulated to keep students safe, would eliminate incentives to engage in high-risk behavior. If WashU allowed events, they could regulate risk and protect community mental health.
To hold these events, we need a system that records which students are vaccinated and allows WashU community members to verify vaccination status. A vaccine record system can be used to exempt students from quarantine, screenings, covid tests (which we could sell or donate to communities that actually need tests), and mask and distancing requirements. Exemptions could work like Israel’s vaccine passport to allow events to be held. This would create a very strong incentive to get the vaccine as soon as possible and properly upload proof. WashU created a system (currently integrated with the Habif health portal) which can do all this last month. We just need to use it.
WashU’s policy on pods, groups of people who social distance from others but not between each other, has a similar problem to its event policy. Unlike many institutions, WashU embraced science and CDC guidelines supporting the safety of pods. Then after officially allowing them, the administration passed policy after policy designed to write them out of existence. Pods are allowed, except if you’re on campus and outside, or eating in the dining hall, or studying at a campus library, or living in WashU housing, or on campus and inside. This hypocrisy led to last summer’s surprise eviction of hundreds of students who could have safely lived on campus. It also makes it so impractical to be a pod that podding is not in widespread use. Our mental health services are overwhelmed, yet we’ve cancelled pods, which provide vital social support. We need to fix this to universally allow (and reasonably regulate) pods. Pods should be able to eat together, study together, walk together, and live together. The science has spoken. The pod policy should be enforced as originally intended.
Perhaps the worst part of this is that the administration has made choices that harm public health because they do not care about public health. The decisions coming from WashU suggest one priority: limitation of legal liability.
Perhaps the worst part of this is that the administration has made choices that harm public health because they do not care about public health. The decisions coming from WashU suggest one priority: limitation of legal liability. We need to reorient WashU to care more about ethics than money, but that’s a problem for another day, because these interests are aligned in the pandemic. First of all, the lack of lawsuits filed in the year since the pandemic (other than those for tuition recovery) suggests people aren’t lining up to sue, and those who are have not had enough success to make the news. More importantly, WashU’s current policies may put it at risk for more legal liability, not less. A shrewd lawyer might argue that by exceeding CDC guidelines, WashU is violating them, and in doing so, increasing the risk of COVID-19 transmission and harming student mental health. If a student who was never in contact with the virus is quarantined (which has happened to many students), and the quarantine causes academic struggles or mental health problems, the student could sue for the cost of tuition plus appropriate treatment, plus punitive damages. This happens at a higher rate than COVID-19 spread, and few juries would take kindly to violations of CDC guidelines that cause harm to students.
A body of evidence that the vaccine is safe and effective is growing every day, suggesting that the minute risk of contracting the virus after being vaccinated will not cause a significant level of harm. Depression, addiction, and obesity have increased during the pandemic, while learning outcomes, meaningful social interaction, and household financial stability have all decreased.
The reality of legal liability is that WashU is risking more by trying to risk less. Especially when it comes to the highest risk behavior, more students are partying in unsafe ways because excessive restrictions prevent healthier alternatives. A growing body of evidence shows tying policies to CDC guidelines will be safe for the community. As a world-leading scientific institution, we should trust the science. A body of evidence that the vaccine is safe and effective is growing every day, suggesting that the minute risk of contracting the virus after being vaccinated will not cause a significant level of harm. Depression, addiction, and obesity have increased during the pandemic, while learning outcomes, meaningful social interaction, and household financial stability have all decreased.
These policy changes will protect public health, improve community mental health, and fulfill the administration’s goal of reducing legal liability. What are we waiting for?