The Covid-19 “emergency” is long finished with the fall 2023 semester about to begin, Save Jerseyans, but New Jersey’s largest university system is acting like it’s still August 2021.
In fact, Rutgers is presently drawing criticism both inside and outside of the Garden State for its bizarre and draconian policy requiring proof of student Covid-19 vaccination for the coming schol year under threat of disenrollment.
“Requiring 3 COVID vax for college freshman is not just bad science but malpractice,” tweeted Kentucky Senator Rand Paul on Friday. “Risk of myocarditis is 28x higher in young men w/COVID vaccine than the risk of myocarditis from COVID. Germany released stats – no healthy young people died from Covid.”
“It’s baffling to see that from what should be a leading voice of science-based rationality, comes arbitrary garbage,” said New Jersey state Senator Declan O’Scanlon (R-13). “We now know for an absolute fact that the COVID vaccine protects no one except the recipient of the vaccine. Broad-based policies like this should only be enacted with the goal of protecting individuals from someone else’s action or inaction. It’s not the job of Rutgers, or Governor Murphy, or anyone else to enact a policy to protect me from myself and my own decisions– or from some perceived protection of my own self due to my own decisions.”
“Further highlighting this absurdity and inconsistency is that Rutgers is mandating the primary vaccine series but not mandating boosters. It’s a ludicrous policy; any benefit there might have been from the initial vaccine has long since waned in the face of continuously evolving strains.” O’Scanlon added. “We are all very likely being exposed to COVID on a regular basis, in some form, just by virtue of interacting with people. It is extremely probable that no one who has been out and about in society in any way over the course of the last 3 years hasn’t been exposed to COVID—and doesn’t have some level of natural immunity. Evidence of how ludicrous this policy is just keeps piling on.”
And to make matters worse? A bill requiring colleges to mandate vaccination is presently pending before the New Jersey Assembly’s Health Committee.
Especially given what we now know about the mechanisms of the virus and the vaccine’s limitations, O’Scanlon says its now a simple matter of choice (or at least it should be).
“Rutgers students who don’t want to get the vaccine for whatever reason should be allowed to not get the vaccine and still attend college– that should absolutely be no business of irrational Rutgers administrators,” O’Scanlon continued. “Good job Rutgers for putting another stake in the heart of the credibility of institutions of higher education and the greater health policy community. Maybe the good news is that there’s so little credibility left the net result isn’t impacted that much by this ludicrous mandate.”
