Hi all,

The petition was delivered earlier today. The local news asked the administration about it and, through a spokesperson, they claimed the booster mandate was necessary to stop the spread. 

That is an odd claim to make now, given that all relevant parties have acknowledged that the existing vaccines are not capable of stopping the spread. Study after study, plus the explosion of record-high cases in the most heavily vaccinated U.S. states and foreign nations, confirms that the Covid vaccine cannot stop transmission. 

This gets to the heart of our opposition to the mandate: there needs to be a compelling public interest served, not the pretense of one, to justify state coercion in a free society. 

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Dr. Paul Offit is universally recognized as one of the nation's foremost authorities on vaccines. He is a member of the FDA COVID Vaccine Advisory Panel and co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine. He enthusiastically supports mandates, believing that the benefits of vaccination far outweigh the loss of liberty associated with a mandate. 

Here are his thoughts on a booster mandate, however:

"Yes, omicron is a very different variant from the strains of COVID-19 we’ve seen so far, but my opinion about boosters hasn’t changed. If anything, given that two doses of an mRNA-containing vaccine are very likely to protect against serious illness, I’m even more convinced that we should hold off on pushing boosters when such an unusual variant is circulating. For people who have two shots and are not at immediate risk from COVID-19, there may be benefits to waiting for a booster that’s more tailored to a variant that is completely resistant to protection against serious illness afforded by the vaccine." 

GMU's booster mandate is driven by politics, not science. There is a need to be seen as doing something. If that something was as innocuous as requiring students to drink a glass of orange juice before school, it might not be worth making a fuss over. But the right to bodily autonomy is an incredibly important one, and it deserves a robust defense. Add to that the fact that some students will be coerced into taking a third shot that poses more potential harm than benefits, and the argument for a booster mandate collapses entirely. 

Thank you for all your support. Now that the administration has acknowledged receiving the petition, I would encourage those of you who are so inclined to send them a short note expressing your support.