# First college to ban unvaccinated students from living on-site



## Amity Island (Aug 20, 2021)

Hartpury University and College in Gloucester is thought to be the first English higher-education institution to make Covid-19 vaccinations compulsory.

The specialist agricultural and veterinary institution said the rule also applied to anyone wishing to stable their horse there.

Hartpury said the measures would not apply to people with medical exemptions.
First reported in the Daily Telegraph, the college said unvaccinated students may also have limited access to social events on campus









						Hartpury says unvaccinated students cannot live on-site
					

Students without the Covid-19 jab may also have their access to social clubs and venues restricted.



					www.bbc.com


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## Inka (Aug 20, 2021)

I can understand that. Covid could spread like wildfire.


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## nonethewiser (Aug 21, 2021)

Makes sense, all should follow.


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## Amity Island (Aug 21, 2021)

nonethewiser said:


> Makes sense, all should follow.


Hi Nonethewiser,

In what way does it make sense?

https://forum.diabetes.org.uk/boards/threads/jabbed-adults-infected-with-delta-‘can-match-virus-levels-of-unvaccinated’.95373/









						Half of Covid hospital cases fully vaccinated
					

Almost half of Covid-19 patients admitted to hospital so far this week have been fully vaccinated, the HSE director-general has said.Paul Reid said that 49 per




					www.thetimes.co.uk


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## mikeyB (Aug 21, 2021)

It makes sense because if everyone is vaccinated, the chance of picking up the infection is much lower or absent.

However many fully vaccinated folk are in hospital is irrelevant. They are all individuals, not a group.


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## Robin (Aug 21, 2021)

Benny G said:


> It makes no sense at all.
> 
> The young people at university have many other real things to be concerned about.


Such as, who is going to muck out and exercise the horse that they are keeping there if everyone’s down with Covid (This college is a big provider of equine courses).
Surely reduced transmission, which several studies including the ONS have noted, will mean fewer people off sick with it (not everyone young gets away with it asymptomatically) and those left to do the work won’t be so stretched, and fewer students will miss vital weeks of their courses because they’re laid up in their room with a temperature and cough.


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## Bruce Stephens (Aug 21, 2021)

Benny G said:


> And for the vaccinated even less risk.


So wanting as many people as possible vaccinated makes good sense for a university, surely?

(It might be that this kind of requirement will cause students and/or staff not to return which would obviously be a factor. I presume there'll also be lawsuits at some point which is also something I presume they'll be thinking about.)


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## Bruce Stephens (Aug 21, 2021)

Amity Island said:


> Nothing wrong with wanting, but banning?


Is there anything wrong with banning? I'm honestly not sure.

I'd worry more about whether it might be counterproductive, with maybe some people trying to cheat the system or withdrawing from the university who might have been persuadable had they had a different approach.

On the other hand this perhaps gives helpful information: presumably most places won't be requiring vaccination (but will be strongly recommending it), so having a few that are trying to ought to show how effective it is (both in terms of whether they can achieve very high vaccination rates and how much difference that makes in sickness, infections, etc.).


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## Eddy Edson (Aug 22, 2021)

Bruce Stephens said:


> Is there anything wrong with banning? I'm honestly not sure.
> 
> I'd worry more about whether it might be counterproductive, with maybe some people trying to cheat the system or withdrawing from the university who might have been persuadable had they had a different approach.


I'd go with banning.

But then again, I think people who refuse to get vaxxed should be made to wear big dunce hats & ring warning bells.


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## mikeyB (Aug 22, 2021)

“Choose not to take a drug”? What drug are you talking about?


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## Inka (Aug 22, 2021)

It says for those living in campus accommodation, so presumably unvaccinated people could rent privately? I think it’s a sensible rule for campus accommodation.

I don’t think vaccinations should be mandatory, but I think people who’ve exercised their choice not to have the Covid vaccine would expect that there might be some places that they’re barred from because of that.


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## Eddy Edson (Aug 22, 2021)

Benny G said:


> The other option is to ban people who do things that might cause someone offence, or make the NHS busy.


I'd limit the banning to people who refuse to do simple things to decrease substantial risk to others.


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## mikeyB (Aug 22, 2021)

It’s worth noting that policy in Australian states with regard to admitting unvaccinated kids to school amounts to mandatory vaccination. Parents have to provide certificates of vaccination to schools, so it’s just accepted that you get your kids vaccinated.


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## Inka (Aug 22, 2021)

I see where you’re coming from @Amity Island but I feel that there are far too many people who are recklessly refusing the vaccine and/or basing their decision on stupid reasons. I most certainly do NOT include you in that group - I understand you have concerns and that you’ve done lots of research and reading.

But I wouldn’t want to go to a uni full of people who are refusing the vaccine for silly reasons and believing unscientific rubbish. IMO, it’s reasonable to ban those people. They’re risking others’ health unnecessarily.

I’ve refused vaccines before and I’m glad I have the right to do so, but I accept that my choice might limit me, and I think that’s right (a job I applied for wanted a certain vaccine and I had reservations, didn’t want it and didn’t want/need the job enough to have the vaccine).


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## Inka (Aug 22, 2021)

@Amity Island I have children and I’ll have to decide whether they have the vaccine if one’s available for their age groups. It’s not an easy decision and I’m still uncertain what I’ll decide, but I understand why some places might institute bans. I wouldn’t insist my children went to those places if they were unvaccinated and bans were in place. I’d have to find alternatives and I’d accept that as a consequence of my decision.


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## Bruce Stephens (Aug 22, 2021)

Amity Island said:


> From the evidence that has so far been provided, the risks outweigh the rewards for the healthy young.


I'd disagree with that. The main risk seems (so far) to be heart inflammation, but that seems pretty rare (30-50 per million in children and usually mild (so much so there was doubt about whether the harm was causal since nobody seemed confident about the base rate), so I guess a bit lower in this age group) and quite a bit lower than the risks from infection (which can also cause heart inflammation).

While the risks of death from COVID-19 are generally low for this age group, they're not zero and there's significant uncertainty about long term harms. And colleges have many older people present, of course. And (in this case) animals, some of which might be vulnerable to infection.


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## Bruce Stephens (Aug 23, 2021)

Amity Island said:


> But to date, STILL no assessment or opinion on all the results has been published (which I find astounding).


As I understand it MHRA is continuously monitoring the reports (much as they did of the events during the trials).

We only get to see summaries like https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...ary-of-yellow-card-reporting#analysis-of-data


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## Inka (Aug 23, 2021)

Hi @Amity Island 

We’ve been lucky not to have mandatory vaccines in the U.K. but other countries have mandatory vaccines for children eg before they’re allowed to start school:

https://ourworldindata.org/childhood-vaccination-policies

So making entry to some places dependent on having had a Covid vaccine isn’t unheard of, not even for children.

What are the long-term effects of Covid? How common is long Covid in children? How common is MIS-C (multi-system inflammatory syndrome in children)?

No decision on this is simple, even ignoring the fact that Covid could be spread by children and could mutate - to the detriment of us all.


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## Bruce Stephens (Aug 23, 2021)

Inka said:


> How common is MIS-C (multi-system inflammatory syndrome in children)?


In the US there have been 4404 cases with 37 deaths. (I don't know how many children there are in the US, or how many have been infected with the virus.) Median age of the cases is 9, which isn't great for a policy of vaccinating people starting at age 12. Doesn't hurt much (since there have been cases over 12) but it reduces the value a bit.

Now that the vaccine's been approved for children 12-18 I'm guessing (in a few years when supply is sufficient) sufficiently motivated parents (such as doctors) will just pay for their children to have it privately as happened with the HPV vaccine (when there was one covering more strains that wasn't being offered by the NHS and, for that matter, when boys weren't routinely offered the vaccine).

(Pfizer's name sucks, though: "Comirnaty"? Really? Moderna's "Spikevax" surely wins there.)


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## Inka (Aug 23, 2021)

Thank you @Bruce Stephens Useful to know.


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## Eddy Edson (Aug 23, 2021)

Bruce Stephens said:


> (Pfizer's name sucks, though: "Comirnaty"? Really? Moderna's "Spikevax" surely wins there.)


AZ vax is "Vaxzevria" in most parts of the world.  It's hard to imagine humans coming up with some of these names,


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## Bruce Stephens (Aug 23, 2021)

Inka said:


> Thank you @Bruce Stephens Useful to know.


Here's something probably more useful: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2780861
In this cohort study of 248 persons with MIS-C, MIS-C incidence was 5.1 persons per 1 000 000 person-months and 316 persons per 1 000 000 SARS-CoV-2 infections in persons younger than 21 years. Incidence was higher among Black, Hispanic or Latino, and Asian or Pacific Islander persons compared with White persons and in younger persons compared with older persons.​
Presuming those are both still about right I think that would suggest O(1) deaths per million of children who get infected which I think we're expecting will be all children. (That's deaths of this particular cause. There may well be other long term harms from infection of various incidences and I presume there's a small number of deaths similar to those of adults.)


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## Bruce Stephens (Aug 23, 2021)

Eddy Edson said:


> AZ vax is "Vaxzevria" in most parts of the world. It's hard to imagine humans coming up with some of these names,


I quite like "Vaxzevria". I'm imagining it in a Spanish or similar accent and I think it works. (Better than Pfizer's, anyway.)

I wonder if Pfizer has a long standing pattern for naming such things (leading to their name) and Moderna (being new) could go with the rather brash Spikevax.

(On the other hand I'm in no way qualified to judge. Nobody would want me doing their marketing.)


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## Eddy Edson (Aug 23, 2021)

Bruce Stephens said:


> Here's something probably more useful: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2780861
> In this cohort study of 248 persons with MIS-C, MIS-C incidence was 5.1 persons per 1 000 000 person-months and 316 persons per 1 000 000 SARS-CoV-2 infections in persons younger than 21 years. Incidence was higher among Black, Hispanic or Latino, and Asian or Pacific Islander persons compared with White persons and in younger persons compared with older persons.​
> Presuming those are both still about right I think that would suggest O(1) deaths per million of children who get infected which I think we're expecting will be all children. (That's deaths of this particular cause. There may well be other long term harms from infection of various incidences and I presume there's a small number of deaths similar to those of adults.)


From https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-020-00698-1 the overall COVID IFR for kids <17 seems to be around 0.001% - 0.002%, so 10 or 20 per million.


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## Bruce Stephens (Aug 23, 2021)

Eddy Edson said:


> It's hard to imagine humans coming up with some of these names,


Story about the names (which all come from Brand Institute, apparently): https://www.fiercepharma.com/market...pfizer-s-comirnaty-awaiting-official-name-and


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## Bruce Stephens (Aug 24, 2021)

Amity Island said:


> How many of those 10 or 20 had serious pre-existing health conditions? What is the IFR for healthy kids?


Here's a relevant paper which suggests pediatric comorbidities are significant








						Severe COVID-19 Infection and Pediatric Comorbidities: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
					

There is limited information on the severity of COVID-19 infection in children with comorbidities. We investigated the effects of pediatric comorbidities on COVID-19 severity by means of a systematic review and meta-analysis of published literature.PubMed, ...




					www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov


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## nonethewiser (Aug 24, 2021)

Amity Island said:


> Hi Nonethewiser,
> 
> In what way does it make sense?
> 
> ...



Young adults are super spreaders of covid, so more vaccinated better it is to bring down infection rates.

Own children are grown up, if they were still kids wouldnt have any hesitation having them vaccinated.


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## Inka (Aug 25, 2021)

nonethewiser said:


> Young adults are super spreaders of covid, so more vaccinated better it is to bring down infection rates.
> 
> Own children are grown up, if they were still kids wouldnt have any hesitation having them vaccinated.



Yes, I wouldn’t want my children giving Covid to their grandparents or to the two people in my family who have very compromised immune systems - or indeed to anyone else’s relatives.


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## Bruce Stephens (Aug 25, 2021)

Benny G said:


> It's only the unvaccinated or those without natural immunity who are at risk. That includes parents, grand parents, and everyone else's relatives.


People who are vaccinated are at much lower risk of serious illness. Can still become sick. The figure seems to be 20 years: a (fully) vaccinated person has about the same risk as an unvaccinated person 20 years younger.


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## Inka (Aug 25, 2021)

Benny G said:


> It's only the unvaccinated or those without natural immunity who are at risk. That includes parents, grand parents, and everyone else's relatives.



The vaccines aren’t 100% effective though, are they, so being vaccinated isn’t a guarantee, especially if you’re older. Also, I mentioned the two people who have severe immune problems - they’re vaccinated but have been told they are still at risk from Covid due to a lesser response to the vaccine and their additional health issues.


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## Bruce Stephens (Aug 25, 2021)

Inka said:


> The vaccines aren’t 100% effective though, are they, so being vaccinated isn’t a guarantee, especially if you’re older. Also, I mentioned the two people who have severe immune problems - they’re vaccinated but have been told they are still at risk from Covid due to a lesser response to the vaccine and their additional health issues.


Yes, we're all still at some risk from it, and older people are (other things being equal) at greater risk. Vaccination (or, presumably, surviving and recovering from infection) reduces the risk (by about 20 years as I wrote above).

So a vaccinated 80 year old has about the same risk as an unvaccinated 60 year old.


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## Bruce Stephens (Aug 26, 2021)

Benny G said:


> "Life expectancy at birth in the UK in 2017 to 2019 was 79.4 years for males and 83.1 years for females"
> 
> Coincidence?


Probably coincidence. Life expectancy for 80 year olds is different to life expectancy at birth.


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## Bruce Stephens (Aug 26, 2021)

Bruce Stephens said:


> Probably coincidence.


Maybe you're right and it's not coincidence. It's probably hard to have an average (of any kind) higher than about 80 years because that's the expected (in some loose sense) age of death: there just aren't enough people over that age to raise the average that much.


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## Bruce Stephens (Aug 26, 2021)

Amity Island said:


> Is natural acquired immunity a better, quicker, cheaper, and a longer lasting solution?


I think it's cheaper. You'd also need to add in the cost of a non-trivial proportion of children needing a (brief) stay in hospital, and a larger proportion of parents who need to stay home looking after sick children. I still suspect it's cheaper because the proportion is quite small, I'd guess (I've seen estimates 0.5%-2% of infected children needing significant care).

Better, quicker, longer lasting? No idea. Not safer, since while deaths in children from this are rare, they do happen, and the vaccines are still looking really safe. I think we don't know about longer lasting. People have argued that vaccine induced immunity is stronger and more general (I think some people who recovered from infection turned out to have quite specific antibodies, but I'm not quite sure what that would mean).

I think in France you can be fully vaccinated with a single dose of vaccine if you also recovered from infection which is probably a reasonable balance.

My guess is that if money were no object, vaccinating children as we do for many other diseases would be best, so an mRNA vaccine at the same time as MMR (with similar, long, spacing between doses). Likely with smaller doses than are used for adults (so a bit cheaper, though practicalities of doing that with the current storage requirements probably makes it infeasible).


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## Bruce Stephens (Aug 26, 2021)

Amity Island said:


> Seems to be no discussion of this in the MSM.


Don't know where you're looking, but there's certainly discussions around it. I've heard Prof Paul Hunter talk several times of the idea of this becoming an endemic infection (like the coronaviruses that cause colds) that children get, so in a decade or two we won't really notice it.

I haven't heard anyone serious suggesting covid parties to make sure that children do get infected (which would surely be logical). My suspicion is that that's just because it would sound too silly (given that we have suitable vaccines) but I'm not sure what's wrong with the idea: either offer vaccination or make sure children encounter the virus when it's relatively safe for them to do so. (Maybe the plan would be that most children would get it, but you'd also give a vaccination when they're 12, say.)


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## Bruce Stephens (Aug 26, 2021)

Amity Island said:


> This leads me onto the obvious question about where we are heading next with the bans?
> 
> 1. Are the schools going to decide to ban kids who aren't vaccinated?


Doubt it. Some private schools might (to reduce disruption from sickness, if and when vaccinations became approved by JCVI), but I'd guess they'd start with staff rather than pupils (again to reduce disruption).

I don't think schools require even MMR do they?


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## Bruce Stephens (Aug 31, 2021)

Bruce Stephens said:


> People who are vaccinated are at much lower risk of serious illness. Can still become sick. The figure seems to be 20 years: a (fully) vaccinated person has about the same risk as an unvaccinated person 20 years younger.


I was misremembering. It's about 30 years:


__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1418952154342166539


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