With the Fall semester moving towards Spring, many colleges and universities around the nation are still mandating COVID-19 vaccinations, and many folks are fighting back against these policies. One great source for information on this critical issue is NoCollegeMandates.com. Among other things, this group has produced a spreadsheet listing which colleges around the US are mandating vaccines or boosters. Now, this organization has also created a letter template for parents to send to the nationally-prominent University of California system, demanding an end to its COVID-19 vaccine mandate, and this letter provides a good overview of why such mandates should end. It notes that across Europe, authorities have allowed a testing or natural immunity option for folks who do not want the vaccines. Notably, many states have banned COVID-19 vaccine mandates in higher education; these laws can be found at the RighttoRefuse.org website.

Policies Tracked at 1,064 Schools of Higher Education

Universities in the UK, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark in fact never imposed COVID-19 vaccine mandates. Denmark and Norway are now recommending these products only for those over 50 or 65 years old. And Japan has not allowed discrimination based on vaccine choice. Even New Zealand dropped its mandates back on September 26. No College Mandates (NCM) reports that they are tracking policies at 1,064 universities around the USA, and only 1.7% of them, or 18 colleges, are mandating the new bivalent booster. 604 schools have no COVID-19 vaccine mandate, and another 203 are not requiring boosters. Also, out of 77 California universities, 17 have dropped all their mandates and an additional five are not mandating boosters; further 81 community colleges in that state either don’t require vaccines or else plan to drop their mandates for Spring 2023. Further, the federal worker mandate does not require any boosters, including for employees at CDC, FDA, and the National Institutes of Health.

 Stopping Transmission: A “False Premise”

The letter to the University of California system also points out that “mandates were introduced on the false premise that the vaccines prevented infection/transmission.” Back in 2021 CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, and also Dr. Anthony Fauci, stated that the data showed the folks who were vaccinated would not carry or spread the virus, a key presupposition for the utility of vaccine mandates. Yet based on its October 2022 presentation for the EU Parliament, Pfizer has acknowledged that it did not test for transmission prior to rolling out their product. The UC California letter points out that “COVID-19 vaccines had been marketed in a way that misled the public to believe that vaccines prevented infection. Yet, Dr. Fauci was infected in June and July 2022, President Biden in July and August 2022, and Dr. Walensky a month after receiving the bivalent booster.”

 Bivalent Booster Not Tested on Young People

NCM also offers that the bivalent booster’s FDA Fact Sheet reports that it was tested on 300 people all over 55 years of age. It was not tested on the 18–29-year-old age bracket; yet these are the folks experiencing the highest level of cardiac harm after vaccination. Their letter also informs us that a reanalysis of the data from Pfizer and Moderna’s trials, “indicated the mRNA vaccines were associated with an additional serious adverse event for every 800 people vaccinated. Analysis of the recently released V-safe program data found that 7.7% of the users – 782,913 people – reported seeking medical attention via telehealth appointment, urgent care clinic, emergency room intervention, or hospitalization following a COVID-19 vaccine.”

Backlash at Fordham University

News reports have also touched on the “backlash” at Fordham University, located in Manhattan and the Bronx in New York, over requiring mainly healthy young people to receive the minimally-tested bivalent booster. Parents and students have been outraged by this requirement and the “backlash has been broader and louder than with any of the Jesuit university’s previous vaccine or booster requirements, which it has had in place throughout the pandemic.” The group Fordham Together has gained almost 1,200 signatures from parents along with students, alumni, and staff for a letter opposing this mandated booster. Parent Laura Soricone offered that, “Parents are upset that students and members of the committee have no choice—-This idea that they’ll be disenrolled if they choose not to [get the booster] is crazy. I think the school has some sense that these boosters are going to quell the spread when there’s really no evidence that that’s the case.”

 Mom, Attorney, Activist Working with Children’s Health Defense California

NCM is led by Lucia Sinatra, a mom and a former attorney. Ms. Sinatra is partnered with Children’s Health Defense in her efforts, and the California chapter of CHD has produced another letter template for parents, students, and other concerned folks to send to universities around the nation in opposition to COVID-19 vaccine mandates.