Employees out of compliance with the university’s COVID-19 vaccination policy will face additional accountability measures. These take effect Nov. 8 for staff and at the end of the academic semester for faculty.
The measures apply to faculty and staff on the Ann Arbor, Dearborn and Flint campuses. Michigan Medicine has a separate, similar process that has been communicated to employees.
more information
The university’s vaccination policy is a public health measure implemented to protect students, faculty and staff from COVID-19 infection. Only a few hundred employees are believed not to be in compliance. The large majority of them are temporary staff.
Under the vaccination policy, faculty and staff must be vaccinated or receive an approved medical or religious exemption. Anyone not fully vaccinated is required to complete weekly COVID-19 testing.
Employees considered not in compliance include those:
- Granted an exemption but not compliant with weekly testing.
- Without verified vaccination or an approved exemption, but compliant with weekly testing.
- Without verified vaccination or an approved exemption and not compliant with weekly testing.
Staff will have until Nov. 8 to report the start of their vaccination process or request an exemption. Staff who are not compliant by then will not be allowed to work — and will not be paid — for 30 days. If they do not come into compliance by Dec. 8, their employment will be terminated.
Staff who fail to comply with the testing requirement are not allowed to work — and will not be paid — until they come into compliance. If they do not come into compliance, they will be subject to progressive discipline leading to termination.
Faculty who are not compliant with the vaccine mandate will be placed on a 30-day unpaid leave at the end of the academic semester. If they do not come into compliance by the end of that period, they will be subject to the applicable dismissal process.
Employees working fully remotely are not required to test unless they need to work on-site or interact with others in-person as part of their work. They are required, however, to be vaccinated or receive an exemption.
At Michigan Medicine, employees not in compliance with the vaccination policy as of Nov. 1 will follow the standard discipline policy, which provides for a five-step process from verbal warning through discharge.
Employees covered by a collective bargaining agreement that are not currently subject to the mandate will not be affected. They must continue to wear face coverings and complete the daily screening using the ResponsiBLUE symptom-tracking app.
Anyone hired into a job covered by a collective bargaining agreement after the policy took effect is subject to the mandate as part of pre-employment screening.
University Human Resources will coordinate with schools, colleges and units to notify staff this week and encourage them to come into compliance with the policy.
Federal vaccination mandates may create additional requirements for U-M employees. Upcoming mandates include one for federal contractors that is effective Dec. 8, large employers and Medicare and Medicaid-certified facilities. Information about these mandates will be available soon.
Christine Wendt
Excellent. Thank you on behalf of all of us.
Jessyca Hannah
Not all of us. Please don’t lump me into this “Excellent” proclimation. I do not agree with anyone having to lose their job over a mandate for a shot that doesn’t fully prevent the virus or the spreading of disease to others.
Zachary Cary
I agree with Jessyca. Well said. After 3 months, the vaccine does nothing to stop the spread of variants of covid which are which ones are going around right now. Anyone vaccinated more than 3 months ago is now spreading at same rate as anyone else.
Damien Siwik
For the record, Christine does not speak for “all of us”.
Kevin Martin
Certainly not the majority of “All Of Us”.
Liz Rodriguiz
Christine only speaks for those of us who want to work in safe workplaces.
Jessyca Hannah
How is it a “safe workplace” if you can still get Covid and pass it to others? How is it safe if you are fearful of losing your job because you don’t want to be poked with an experimental drug? When did we start losing our freedoms and bend to the whim of the pharmaceutical companies?
Jeanette Balaze
COVID-19 vaccine is a vaccine and not a drug. There is a difference between the two and what each does within the body. Please read this article – https://www.uab.edu/news/health/item/12143-three-things-to-know-about-the-long-term-side-effects-of-covid-vaccines – Or any other articles, so that you can understand the differences.
Daniel Van
Because Jessica, you’re chances of getting it are minimized, and your risk of a severe infection enough to throw you into the hospital and put on a ventilator are about on par with the flu in a normal year. You and everyone else in this comment section comparing this to some totalitarian regime, really don’t understand the concept of public responsbility to others, you don’t live in a vaccuum where choosing to be unvaccinated or refusing the jab doesn’t have an effect on others, others will die as a consequence of your actions and becoming a liability to the University in itself.
Alyssa Abbate
Great points, Daniel. Seems that many want to believe that their choice to not vaccinate affects themselves and only themselves, when clearly we are talking about a communicable virus.
It really is a lack of understanding of public responsibility like you said. What about drunk driving? We all agree that is a threat to public safety. We are supposed to care about each other enough to try to prevent their deaths. So many have died already, I would hope that people want to save their community from more Covid deaths, but I guess not. It’s very sad.
Zachary Cary
Get out of here with your virtue signaling. I don’t owe anyone in public a thing but common decency. The vaccine is for you and your protection alone. If anything, since the vaccine is leaky, you’re actively creating more variants by getting vaccinated. You people never supported mandatory flu shots every flu season. This is literally a merging of big pharma with our government, and you wanna turn on the rest of us and mandate a pharmaceutical product for everyone. The vaccine is the least effective way to prevent sickness from covid. Three months after your second dose, and you are spreading the variants of covid at the same exact rate as people who are unvaccinated. Plenty of natural remedies and preventions work just fine. If you want the vaccine, then get it, but the rest of us are not going to play fairytale with you and pretend the vaccine is actually stopping the spread and “helping the community”. Give me a break, you think you’re so virtuous and brave for getting an injection to protect yourself from a virus that has a death rate of fractions of a percent. Also, 80% of those hospitalized with covid were obese. Should we start mandating an hour of exercise a day to help the community? Oh, and vitamin D deficiency is a huge problem above the 35th parallel (Michigan and other midwest states); if you are vitamin D deficient, you can’t fight off covid as well as if you were not. Should we mandate everyone take vitamin D supplements? Of course not, because everyone should be able to decide what they do with and what they put into his/her body. Go take your blue pill and enjoy the show, because the rest of us sane people aren’t backing down from this insanity being perpetuated by the university and people like you who agree with it.
Jessyca Hannah
No one should be forced to comply or face losing their jobs. I don’t know what happened to the University I started working for years ago, but I definitely don’t like the direction this one is heading.
Daniel Van
Find another job then.
Elysehanh Larsen
Agree to work in safe environment. However, this is my body and my choice!
Elysehanh Larsen
Yep, Jessyca is correct. I had 2 Pfizer doses but still got Covid. I wonder — should I get a booster shot? The pharmaceutical is the winner by raking billion of dollars.
Peter Larson
I was vaccinated for measles and still got measles, but I’m not deaf or dead.
A lot of people got vaccinated for measles and still got measles, but a lot fewer of them became deaf or dead.
There are plenty of examples of vaccines that do not provide 100% protection against infection but minimize severity of disease.
Kirk Lawrence
Whether you believe in the reliability or the COVID-19 shot or not, you have a choice. Nobody is taking that away. However, the choice you make extends to your employment as well. If you exercise your choice not to get vaccinated, know that you will have consequences for your actions. This is something most of us have all learned growing up. If you can’t live with that, then you have some hard choices to make as you ponder your employment opportunities. Just like taxes, I can choose not to pay if I want, but that might come with consequences I won’t like.
Daniel Van
Exactly, It’s our responsbility to others to ensure we’re doing the best we can to fight COVID, to not is to become a liability to the University and others around you. This is why this policy is no in effect.
David Blair
These so called “mandates or lose your job” policies are a slippery slope.
Say for example your employer does not allow employees to have children because they say it interferes with productivity. What are you going to do? Lose your job or kill your baby?
Or you must be left handed? Not bald? Under a certain weight?
Where does it stop?
As far as the “vaccines”, I thought they supposed to protect you from getting sick.
I don’t recall just having a little polio. Or getting polio if you were exposed to the virus from any source. What up with that?
I really hope these jabs will not be exposing the recipients to severe illness from standard influenza viruses. Looking at Israel which is over 90% jabbed the reinfection rate and severity of the cases being seen there are not a good sign. ADE? Looks like it.
Pathogenetic priming? We will see as the flu season hits.
On a happy note the non industrial countries have some of the best covid numbers.
My boots on the ground in Kenya are telling me that they are getting a “package” that contains vitamin D, zinc, Quercetin and Ivermectin. Package cost about $5 dollars for a 5 day regiment.
But hey, we have people over here that are so much smarter.
Daniel Van
Have you people lost your minds? What you’re saying outright is a slippery slope.
Your mandated to do your job by the university, and you follow their rules day in and day out. This vaccine mandate is to ensure your life and the university against liability. It’s nothing to do with those others things you said regarding having kids or not, because of the constitutionality of public health for the last 300 years.
You don’t recall having a little polio or getting polio because vaccines have effectively wiped it out unless you’d like to travel to Pakistan or Afghanistan to experience it fullhand be my guest. What youre suggesting with the immune system is not how it works because COVID and Influenza are not mutually exclusive. Everyone in the U.S has somewhat past immunity to the Flu either through exposure or vaccination or both, the mortality rate we can live with. The mortality of rate of COVID with 700,000 americans dead approaching 1 million this winter, 2-4 million americans disabled with heart and lung damage. But go ahead keep sucking up your conspiracy fueled drivel .
David Blair
Chill out bro, not good for the blood pressure.
Do you know for a fact that these “covid” deaths were not influenza or other major chronic diseases with a coronavirus tagging on for the ride? Do you have any peer reviewed data to back up your talking points?
Or is this what you seen on CNN?
If you are so afraid of this Wuhan virus get the jab. Isn’t that how vaccines supposed to work?
Inconvenient facts?
Sorry if that offends you.
Jeremy Hallum
David,
I find it fascinating that you will only listen to Right Wing talking points, not the excellent physicians and scientists that we have here at the University right here that you have an opportunity to learn from every day. Politics have never beaten a disease, reactionary behavior has never beaten a disease, only science and a will to to work together rise to the occasion. The road to beating a disease with one of the first modern vaccination programs was started here with Polio. Those who do not learn from the past will be doomed to repeat it.
Damien Siwik
I find it fascinating that you will only listen to Left Wing talking points and add no relevant observations to the conversation. I find it fascinating you only listen to “excellent physicians and scientists” here at the University who have been wrong on COVID multiple times over. I find it fascinating you will only listen to excellent physicians and scientists here at University of Michigan and not open your mind to excellent physicians and scientists outside of the university. I find it fascinating you place complete faith in the excellent physicians and scientists who are still making it up as they go along. Please tell us exactly what is the full recommenced course of vaccinations for any of the COVID vaccines? You can’t because the excellent physicians and scientists haven’t told you yet, and that’s because they don’t know.
Agreed, politics have never beaten a disease, so please convince the vaccine fetishists to set aside politics and recognize natural immunity. Please convince the vaccine fetishists to set aside politics and to give equal emphasis to Covid therapeutics. Please convince the vaccine fetishists to set aside politics and recognize that vaccines are not salvation for humanity.
Agreed, reactionary behavior has never beaten a disease, so please speak out against the reactionary and useless lockdowns, forced school closures, illogical bans on selling select products (remember we couldn’t buy house paint because of Covid), intentional misinformation from the excellent physicians and scientists, and illegal, state-level executive orders.
Agreed, those who do not learn from the past will be doomed to repeat it. And that includes the recent past as well.
Daniel Van
You didn’t refute anything he said, you just did sheer whataboutism.
Damien Siwik
And yet you remain mute on the source’s whataboutims.
David Blair
Do you understand what an actual vaccine is? The comparison of mRNA products to live virus vaccines is like comparing automobiles to bicycles.
Elysehanh Larsen
First of all, these “vaccines” are the most among the most ineffective, dangerous, barely tested concoctions ever injected into people for medical reasons. Let us not forget that we are trying to defend against a corona virus that is constantly mutating. Research out of the UK is already showing that it appears that they are wholly ineffective against Delta and actually more vaccinated people may be dying from it than are the un-vaccinated (see table 5 in https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1018547/Technical_Briefing_23_21_09_16.pdf). This along with the high number of “breakthrough” cases here and fact that boosters are being called for after only 6 months demonstrates the marginal efficacy against this rapidly evolving virus. In addition, the number of adverse events being reported for Myocarditis, blood clots, and other conditions including death, are way way higher than in previous, properly tested vaccines.
So, do we really think it is a good idea to basically force people to put this in their bodies Russian roulette style or lose their livelihoods?
Tully Svekric
your own link states: “2 doses of the vaccine remain highly effective, with 60 to 85% effectiveness against infection, 90 to 99% effectiveness against hospitalisation, 90 to 95% against mortality and 65 to 99% against symptomatic disease ”
You’re pointing to one entry on a table to show that vaccinated patients died at higher rates 28 days later than unvaccinated. This is true for patients over 50. Why is it true? Because age is a major factor in outcome and over 90% of those over 50 are vaccinated. Yet 67% of the deaths over 50 are those who are vaccinated. If the vaccine was “wholly ineffective”, you’d expect 90%+ of the deaths age >50 to be among those vaccinated. This isn’t the case, so your point is clearly wrong.
I’m wondering what lead you to focus on one data point in a cohort study from the UK over one time period and come to a completely incorrect conclusion. Who lead you to this and who lead you to come to that incorrect conclusion? What other information have you gotten from that source? I’m guessing there’s more misleading information you’ve been introduced to.
These vaccines are extremely effective and have been highly tested. Adverse effects among those in the initial trials do not show the side-effects you listed as common outcomes – however those are side-effects of having a prior covid infection. “Russian roulette” would be choosing to get covid (as everyone will eventually come in contact with it in their lives) instead of getting the vaccine. Outcomes are MUCH worse if you’re unvaccinated – across the board.
Damien Siwik
Of course a document for Public Health England will find conclusions favorable to vaccinations. No agency, US or English, will ever publish conclusions that run counter to previous policy. Even if the policy was completely wrong, an agency will spin data to their favor. At least the agency had the curtsey of including a disclaimer that “findings have a high level of uncertainty.”
Your reading of Table 5 is in error.
First, for the study population (those confirmed positive for Delta variant) the death rate for all cases (over and under 50) of fully vaccinated ( ≥14 days post dose 2 ) individuals is approximately 2 times the death rate of all unvaccinated individuals.
Fully vaccinated death rate: 1613 / 593,572 = .0027
Unvaccinated death rate: 722 / 593,572 = .0012
Second, the 28-day relationship is not between vaccinated and unvaccinated. 28-days just creates a time-based sub-set of the population. As in, the report reflects February 2021 thru September 2021, but there is a sub-group reporting Delta variant infection within the last 28 days.
Third, it’s 75% (not 67%) “of the deaths over 50 are those who are vaccinated.”
Fourth, where did you get “over 90% of those over 50 are vaccinated”? That statistic is not contained anywhere in the report.
Wholly ineffective. Yes! Once infected, unvaccinated individuals outperform vaccinated at every category of the table.
Death rate for vaccinated who visited Emergency Care (inclusion): 1613 / 9694 = 16.6%
Death rate for vaccinated admitted to hospital (inclusion): 1613 / 4634 = 34.8%
Death rate for unvaccinated who visited Emergency Care (inclusion): 722 / 17,561 = 4.1%
Death rate for unvaccinated admitted to hospital (inclusion): 722 / 6303 = 11.4%
Wholly ineffective. Yes! Fauci set “at least 75%” as the minimum for vaccine efficacy (https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/07/coronavirus-vaccine-dr-fauci-says-chances-of-it-being-highly-effective-is-not-great.html ). Collectively, the vaccines fail to outperform that threshold. See Table 7 of the report. Vaccines low end efficacy for infections and symptoms are 60% and 65%.
Would you really consider an immunization effective if an entire population indefinitely needs boosters every six month?
Would you consider answering your own questions? “Who lead you to this and who lead you to come to incorrect conclusions? What other information have you gotten from that source?”
Peter Larson
“Michigan Sea Grant funds research, education, and outreach projects designed to foster science-based decisions about the use and conservation of Great Lakes resources. Sea Grant also provides access to science-based information about Michigan’s coasts and the Great Lakes.”
I see science there. I would think that people at Michigan Sea Grant would encounter science every once in a while.
Maybe I’m wrong.
Tully Svekric
Public health laws have always been at the center of civil society since societies first formed any kind of governance. Public health laws are the root of law itself. What do any of your “slippery slope” examples have to do with public health? I really don’t see the connection at all.
Imagine that covid was 100% deadly and just as contagious. Would you be taking a stance against any vaccine mandate? No, I really doubt you would – no reasonable person would. For you it just isn’t deadly enough, for whatever reason – and/or the vaccine isn’t effective enough. So where is the line?
Did you know that deadliest YEAR of polio in American history had fewer deaths from polio than the deadliest DAY of deaths from Covid in the US? 99.5-99.9% of cases of polio were not serious (72% were asymptomatic). Of the 0.1-0.5% that got paralytic poliomyelitis, 2-5% of children and 15-30% of adults died. Where were the crowds of people then yelling, “Why am I taking a vaccine with more than a 99.9% survival rate?”
That “90% in Israel” figure you’re quoting is one touted as a lie by many antivaxxers pushing propaganda. It is a distorted quote from one doctor in one hospital where he said 90% who are hospitalized at that moment were vaccinated. This is in a very highly vaccinated area and the age groups being hospitalized were nearing 100% vaccinated in the area. If 99% of the 65+ population is vaccinated in your city and 90% of the 65+ hospitalized (not even ICU) are vaccinated, that means the vaccine is preventing hospitalizations.
I’m curious who your “boots on the ground” are in Kenya. One of my good friends (who works for UM) worked in epidemiology for years in Kenya. Maybe he knows the group studying this there.
Damien Siwik
Maybe the slippery slope examples cited above are not the best. How about:
1) the Tuskegee Syphilis experiment,
2) the forced sterilization of “feeble-minded” women in the late 1920s, and
3) the opposition to Irish and Chinese immigrants as carriers of disease?
All three examples rely on Public Health as justification. And all three were disastrous policies resulting from the slippery slope of unchecked public health agendas.
Jeremy Hallum
Is that anything like your compatriots insistence that the only reason COVID continues to spread because of immigrants. I occasionally watch certain foul contemporary television programs as well. If you wish to imply guilt by association, any argument spouted by Tucker Carlson is right out.
The only reason that we are even able to meet and have classes in person right now, ESPECIALLY given Delta is because of the vaccine. People have already forgotten how fast COVID spread unchecked when we were in an ‘as normal’ world without Delta. In a post-Delta variant world without vaccines, shutdowns would be inevitable. To co-opt another right wing talking point to make the argument: If masks truly don’t work, then the only thing slowing Delta right now must be the 60+% vaccination rate.
Damien Siwik
Thank you for making my argument on my behalf. Agreed, opposition to immigrants based on the claim they are carriers of disease, is a disastrous and political argument. And it perfectly illustrates the slippery slope of unchecked Public Health powers. Thank you.
David Blair
“For years”?
Not sure how this would apply to the Wuhan virus situation as this appeared in late ’19.
My boots are in Christian organizations that service the poor in Africa and actually around the world in areas that are ignored by the elitists. My info comes directly from that organization and a family that I support sending their son to med school, today.
I stand by my original statements.
I stand
Adam Bruce
Well, well, well the totalitarian hammer has finally dropped, and all of those who defy the regime’s newest edict will be put out on the streets and unable to provide for their families. Trotsky would be proud. After all, it was he who once said:
“In a country where the sole employer is the state, opposition means death by slow starvation. The old principle: who does not work shall not eat, has been replaced by a new one: who does not obey shall not eat.” (L. Trotsky, “The Revolution Betrayed: What is the Soviet Union and Where is it Going?”, Trans. Max Eastman, p. 283.)
With the arrival of vaccine mandates, we are just around the corner from the Soviet hell that Trotsky understood so well. How many of us work for government contractors or another woke institution like UM, which have trampled our rights as American citizens, and indeed as human beings? How many of our colleagues and coworkers truly believe that this kind of coercion is totally acceptable? Friends, we are indeed in dark times.
What are the arguments–if they can be called such–for forcing employees to become unwilling subjects of the largest medical experiment in history?
Safety? But we know well from a history of tyrants from Hitler to Pol Pot that one can never exchange liberty for safety. We will have neither in the end. And to show us just how foolish this canard is, we know that the vaccines are neither safe nor effective in preventing covid. OpenVAERS has blown apart the fraudulent claim of safety, while the acknowledged fact that one can still get covid, even with both shots, destroys the lie of efficacy. We are told nothing of natural immunity, even though the research decisively shows this is the most effective means of preventing future infection. We also forget that covid is a rather mild sickness as far as supposedly world-ending pandemics go. The infection fatality rate, according to the well-cited research of Ioannidis (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33716331/) is about 0.3%. The vast majority of those are people over 80 with comorbidities. For the demographics overwhelmingly represented at the university, the IFR is roughly the same as the flu.
Safety is no reason to destroy liberty, even if such a claim had any basis in reality.
What about choice? We read a well-meaning but clueless drone above who claims that losing your job is a valid consequence for your choice to refuse unnecessary and ineffective medical treatment. How far lost are we when we cannot even separate free choice from duress and coercion? By this logic, a man being mugged at gunpoint has chosen to given his money to the mugger, so there is really no crime! Perhaps he can claim it as a charitable donation? Or, to bring forward a more topical example–if Philbert were to have threatened one of those women will losing her job unless she submit to his advances, this would be a perfectly fine ‘choice’, and Philbert is actually guilty of nothing. Obviously this is disgusting and wrong, and those who make such arguments should be ashamed of themselves.
So there is no free choice here. Only the basest and most immoral kind of coercion.
Friends, we are living in dark times, but we do not fear. We do not fear because there is nothing to fear. For we know from the evangelist:
“In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.”
Daniel Van
You’re all political, and no public health. I’m ashamed of people like you. Come to a COVID ICU ward.
Damien Siwik
Pretty aggressive statements:
1) I’m ashamed of people like you.
2) Have you people lost your minds?
3) Others will die as a consequence of your actions.
4) Find another job.
5) Keep sucking up your conspiracy fueled drivel.
6) These yokels.
Is the author just as radical, and intolerant as those of the opposite view?
Shomari Jabulani
Where is Small Pox? Where are the measles? Where is Diphtheria? Where is Polio? I would like to state that policies such as:
1. Wearing Seat Belts
2. Not smoking in public venues
3. Stopping your car at a red light or a stop sign,
are all further examples of Public Safety mandates that clearly positively service and protect the health of the public. Let the science rule.
Daniel Van
Too smart for these yokels.
David Blair
mRNA products are not vaccines. Do not compare them to live virus vaccines.
Last I looked smoking and driving were personal choices that I can make with the understanding of the consequences.
Tully Svekric
You can’t smoke on campus either.
Jessyca Hannah
Sure you can, what are the consequences if you get caught? None.
Daniel Van
I mean try smoking in front of campus security and find out.
Daniel Van
David Blair, you’re spreading lies and you know it.
David Blair
Prove me wrong.
Peer reviewed evidence?
Kari Dumbeck
The point is everybody has a choice, by law, to get these experimental shots or not. If folks stopped living in Google and the fake Fauci World you would see that there is a whole world of truths out there. Like the UK just completed a study and found that those that have taken the shots are losing their innate immunity by 5% a week. Of the many studies from Europe, including Israel that the majority of folks over 80% have taken the shots and are the ones in the hospitals. Even our own medical staff have publicly mentioned that they know the ones coming in with the delta variant have taken the shots. Why are the doctors of UM and Kellogg eye center retiring. Why are some folks not forced while others are and they don’t have written agreements? This is about money and control not health. World graphs that I have seen showed all countries had overcome Covid until the shots came in then it sored to the heavens. God help us all.
Nick Pfost
Thanks to getting the vaccine, my body knew exactly how to combat the virus and I DIDN’T DIE.
All for this kind of common-sense policy built on decades of rigorous research into mRNA and vaccine technology, clear evidence of efficacy on these vaccines in particular, and public health standards that help limit and prevent the spread and impact of deadly disease.
Damien Siwik
Thanks to human evolution, my body knew exactly how to naturally combat the virus and I DIDN’T DIE.
All for common-sense policy built on decades of rigorous research into understanding natural human immune-response and vaccine technology, clear evidence of efficacy on naturally acquired immunity in particular, and public health standards that honor all available options (not single minded vaccine fetishism), fully informed consent, and individual autonomy.
Elysehanh Larsen
Excellent point!
Jeremy Hallum
Such as specious argument given the death toll of 750,000+, who obviously didn’t. Such as specious argument given the lower and lower ages of those dead in Washtenaw County and around the country.
The arguments for natural immunity are also specious since as soon as someone were to suggest to you that we somehow catalog these people with natural immunity and create a central repository of such, you would undoubtedly decline due to ‘freedoms’, and other arguments against centralized repositories of medical records that have been proposed in the past.
Damien Siwik
Such a specious argument to cite 750.000+ deaths while ignoring the 45,000,000+ million people in the US who had and recovered from COVID. Such a specious argument to claim 750,000+ dead from COVID while completely ignoring the impact of co-morbidities.
In a previous post, someone suggested “reactionary behavior has never beaten a disease”. Please explain how “cataloging people with Covid natural immunity” isn’t just reactionary behavior. Please let me know where I can find a catalog of people with natural immunity against influenza, bronchitis, gastroenteritis, Zika, SARS or other types of viruses?
Or would cataloging people with Covid natural immunity simply be a new, futile, reactionary response?
Daniel Van
Damien, how many of your ancestors died to get you to the point because what they had now can be prevented. Vaccination in general is about our self preservation. You’re ongoing whataboutism, arguing in bad faith, is the epitomy of bad faith
Damien Siwik
Your question and statement are illogical.
What you call “whataboutism” is actually responding to comments in the same manner and language as presented. Since when is responding to someone in the same manner as they present themselves “bad faith”?
However, resorting to insults and ad hominem attacks is bad faith. To quote some other people’s comments:
1) You are a liar
2) I’m ashamed of people like you.
3) Have you people lost your minds?
4) Others will die as a consequence of your actions.
5) Find another job.
6) Keep sucking up your conspiracy fueled drivel.
7) Yokels.
Jim Pyke
I feel disappointed that what should have been a straightforward public health issue has been politicized to the point where this pandemic will now continue to haunt us for many years to come.
Just get your shots, folks.
And if you get sick, go get treatment.
There are many things wrong with our health care system, but the core value of trying to help people is still there.
And either stop calling just this one example of medical intervention “experimental”, or promise that you’ll start calling every medical intervention “experimental” – as in “I’m going to get my teeth experimentally cleaned by the dentist today” or “I’ve got high cholesterol so I’m experimentally taking statins” or “I can’t see well anymore, so they’re prescribing experimental corrective lenses for me to wear.”
Is all of science is, at its root, experimental?
Yes.
Should we therefore use the word “experimental” as a colloquial pejorative to discredit all science (or maybe just all scientific work / medical treatments we personally don’t like)?
No – Please. I’m begging you. Good heavens, let’s stop going down that path. It’s really not a good path to go down. It will not lead us to a good place.
And, if you’re skeptical about or don’t trust the government, the health care system, or other institutions, please don’t just start propagandizing against the policies of (or even the very existence of) those institutions. Instead, consider getting involved with learning more about those institutions so that you can more actively participate in improving them. Our (flawed, human made) institutions need more people involved with them who are invested in improving them.
David Blair
Nice dialog on the subject all.
Clearly there is a need for more honest discussion armed with sourced information.
Hana Popelka
Here is a source of information, especially for those who are convinced about the safety of COVID19 mRNA gene therapy (not a vaccine, true vaccines stop viruses and build a herd immunity).
https://ijvtpr.com/index.php/IJVTPR/article/download/23/51/107
This IJVTPR paper clearly shows that there is a strong basis for calling the COVID19 mRNA therapy experimental or investigational.
Daniel Van
IJVTPR is a made up research journal dabbing into conspiracy theories to justify conspiracy theories. I read through it, half of it makes no sense, the other half is misguided conclusions.
Daniil Manaenkov
It is very unfortunate that a top research university continues to pretend as if post-infection immunity is not a thing, hiding behind CDC’s “recommendations.” The scientific evidence that the post-infection protection at the very least rivals that of vaccines is pretty overwhelming (and is far beyond that of the J&J shot). In many European countries, people who recovered from Covid get the same privileges’ as those fully-vaccinated at least for several months, some countries recognize positive antibody tests as proof of recovery.
Here, it’s complete cowardice amongst leadership to admit the obvious, and to allow even small deviations from the simplistic public messaging of “100% vaccination or bust.” Ignoring the obvious science is pretty likely to come back to bite the UofM.
Daniel Van
Antibody tests don’t prove if you’re immune or not, that has been said since the beginning of the pandemic, people admitted to ICU (getting vented etc) care for COVID have high antibody levels, not enough to stop COVID from killing them. For every 80 unvaccinated patients who have died only 1 vaccinated patients of have died, once again ignoring this policy and vaccines will lead to uneeded deaths and countless agony for their loved ones. We don’t live in a vaccuum where choosing to be unvaccinated doesn’t effect others, it does.
Damien Siwik
Original comment was about the university ignoring “post-infection immunity”, yet you cite statistics of vaccinated versus unvaccinated. How about answering the question of vaccination versus post-infection immunity (aka: naturally acquired immunity)?
Also, please cite your source of “80 unvaccinated patients who have died only 1 vaccinated patients of have died”. CDC reports unvaccinated are 11 times more likely to due from Covid infection, not 80.
Daniil Manaenkov
Getting vaccinated doesn’t prove you’re immune either. There are (largely elderly) people who do not mount a reaction to vaccines, and then there’s steep drop-off in vaccine efficacy against infection at 4-6 months, etc.
Also, antibodies =/= protection. The things to look at are clinical outcomes, that is reinfection.
There’s wealth of quality published evidence that people with documented infection or decent levels of antibodies to the nucleocapside protein are at a pretty low risk of reinfection for at least a year. Those are generally much higher than the single-dose of J&J vaccine which is still perfectly acceptable.
Here’s some reading material.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)00675-9/fulltext
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(21)00158-2/fulltext
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2776810
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2780557
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)00575-4/fulltext
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/eci.13520
There are many more, and several key papers currently stuck in ‘peer review.’
There is some laughably bad “research” from CDC on this topic, so, I don’t expect them to do a turnaround for years. So, any university that keeps sticking to that ‘guidance’ is straying further and further away from the science.
The risks of that approach are pretty significant, since this position will fuel anti-science sentiment, which may start affecting actual policy, should our current governor lose re-election next year.
So, I think recognizing post-infection immunity is a prudent risk-mitigation strategy. And it likely doesn’t cost anything in terms of infection control. The only thing it requires is bold leadership to break rank in the extremely politicized environment.
Damien Siwik
Thanks for the post; good reading and links.
There seems to be a suggestion that an electoral loss for the current governor will increase anti-science sentiment. I think that is backwards; it is the current administration’s abuse of science driving mistrust. All too often the only justification for state policy was “we’re following the science”. When requested to produce the supporting science, the administration stonewalled, never producing any. I would really love to see the science supporting prohibitions on boating, house painting and travel between main and vacation residences for Michiganders (which did not apply to people from Ohio with second homes in Michigan). What is commonly presented as anti-science sentiment is actually supporters of science calling out the corruption of science for political agenda. Being opposed to bad policy “based on science” is not the same as being opposed to science.
Daniil Manaenkov
No, the anti scientist/university sentiment is already there, in part due to the reasons you described. If Whitmer loses, it is likely to spill into policy. It’s time for the university to try to diminish that sentiment, or at least stop adding to it.
Daniil Manaenkov
And another quick follow-up.
CDC has a fresh semi-decent summary on post-infection immunity with plenty of links.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-briefs/vaccine-induced-immunity.html#
It’s still worded as if everyone should get vaxxed, but one can gather plenty of viable science-based options:
– Require only a single dose for anyone with any measurable antibodies to the n-protein.
– Allow PCPs to write vax exemptions for at least 6 months for people with documented symptomatic Covid.
– Work to establish a standard test for spike antibody levels. The eventual endemic state will likely mean that 90-95% of people have decent levels of antibodies most of the time, largely from asymptomatic reinfections. Requiring semi-annual boosters (you know those are coming, right?) then is gonna be madness.
Damien Siwik
Unfortunately, the CDC’s latest summary on post-infection immunity still contains dubious findings in the form of the Kentucky case-control study. Hidden in the foot notes of table 1 in the Kentucky study, the authors explain the study’s timeline. The researchers
analyzed the efficacy of natural-immunity that was between 5 and 14 months old (March through December 2020) against the efficacy of vaccinations that were less than 3 months old (February to 1 May 2021). That’s problematic. The claim that “previously infected persons who were unvaccinated had 2.3 times greater odds of reinfection during May–June 2021 than previously infected but vaccinated individuals” is misleading. A more accurate observation would qualify the ages of previous infection and vaccination. Which, if included, greatly undermines the current claim.
Samuel Russell
Very pathetic. Very sad.
Samuel Russell
You gave people the allusion and perception back in August that they could remain employed and unvaccinated, if they agreed to masking and weekly testing.
It would have been more noble and direct to just fire them two months ago, rather than mislead them and give them a false sense of employment for this term/year.
David Blair
Goalposts are on wheels.
Hey, anybody know if we flattened the curve yet?
Gabor Toth
I don’t understand why this is a discussion forum. This article informs us about the University policy. Your opinion about it, especially your opinion based on misinformation, has no place here. If you don’t like this, go and express your dissatisfaction somewhere else. Other than that the options are clear. There is no requirement to like it. But there are requirements on adherence.
David Blair
Isn’t that what a comment section is for?
If you don’t like people
having the freedom to express their opinions try China, or North Korea.
I’m sure you’ll be happy there.
Laura Fink
pfizer docs that were made available by an FOIA
https://phmpt.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/5.3.6-postmarketing-experience.pdf
They knew the vaccines had safety problems and they knew this vaccine would cause Antibody Dependency Enhancement, which is what we are seeing now.
Page 13, notice what is listed in the “missing information”, vaccine effectiveness!