Quinnipiac University’s vaccination rate sits at 94% as of Sept. 9, said Dr. David Hill, senior medical adviser for Quinnipiac’s COVID-19 task force.
That figure is close to the university’s goal of a 95% vaccination rate.
“So we modeled basically 90% vaccination rate for our community, and it really led to a handful of cases on a weekly basis, and that was good news for us,” Hill said. “We feel somewhere between 90 and 95% vaccinated of our community, [including] students, faculty and staff, that that would lead to a healthy situation this fall.”
As of Sept. 9, Connecticut reported that 74.5% of the state population has at least one shot and 66.9% of residents are fully vaccinated.
Quinnipiac has reported a total of 10 COVID-19 cases since Aug. 30.
A handful of cases each week is a safe and reasonable range for the Quinnipiac community. Even so, students are worried about COVID-19 on campus, regardless of their vaccination status.
“I do not feel safe on campus,” said Selia Steiker-Pearl, a vaccinated graduate student in the physical therapy program. She also works in the Quinnipiac Undergraduate Admissions office.
Contracting COVID-19 is one reason why Steiker-Pearl is nervous. The other is vaccination exemptions.
[Quinnipiac] needs to crack down a little bit harder and not just accept every exemption and try to dive a little bit deeper.”
Selia Steiker-Pearl, physical therapy graduate student
“I believe vaccine exemptions are mainly due to politics and not true religious beliefs or medical conditions,” Steiker-Pearl said. “[Quinnipiac] needs to crack down a little bit harder and not just accept every exemption and try to dive a little bit deeper.”
Steiker-Pearl is not the only one worried about false exemptions.
“Thinking initially about granting exemptions [we realized] that there would be some individuals who don’t have a lock-tight reason for the exemption,” Hill said.
Some students submit false exemptions, and others circumvent vaccination and exemption completely.
“You know there’s probably a handful of students who’ve also taken their vaccine card, and you can just download that from the Internet, and you can fill it in yourself and submit that,” Hill said.
Steiker-Pearl said she knows people who have faked vaccination cards, and it makes her concerned about the university’s vaccination status.
But cracking down on exemptions is tenuous.
“We didn’t get into the business of wordsmithing and looking at every single [exemption] and then going back to the student and having arguments about their position, because that doesn’t serve anybody’s purposes,” Hill said. “We can’t say [someone’s] exemption is better than [someone else’s] exemption.”
“I wish people knew that for some this wasn’t a politically motivated choice,” Steiker-Pearl said. “I have a co-worker who is unable to get vaccinated because she’s going through cancer treatment. But others getting vaccinated saves people like my co-worker from getting a break through case.”
Although Connecticut passed a bill this past April that eliminates the state’s religious exemption option from mandatory school vaccinations for children, as a private higher education institution, Quinnipiac had the choice. Despite many legislators and medical professionals that supported the bill citing concerns for ‘illegitimate’ use, Quinnipiac offered the religious exemption along with medical exemptions for all of its students.
One student, who wanted to remain anonymous to avoid retribution, admitted to submitting a false exemption.
“The second I found out there was a way to possibly get exemption, I took action immediately,” they said. “The process consisted of just trying to find a valid excuse for the exemption form. I filled out the religious exemption form because I had no valid medical reasoning.”
Even with a false exemption, the source still worries about contracting COVID-19.
“If I could talk to the whole campus about the exemption I would try to get across the point that I’m no more of a threat to them than anyone else,” they said. “If anyone is at extreme risk of contracting [COVID-19], it’s me,” they said.
Any student who requested a medical or religious exemption through the University also had to sign an “Acceptance of Risk” form.
Senior 3+1 finance major Taylor Proulx is another exempted student on campus.
“I’m afraid of the virus too, don’t get me wrong, just because I’m not vaccinated doesn’t mean I treat [COVID-19] any differently,” Proulx said.
Proulx also filed a religious exemption with the school.
“I am a Christian and I do not support abortion,” Proulx said. “The creation of the [Johnson & Johnson] vaccine and I think it might have been the Moderna vaccine, they use aborted fetal cells as part of testing.”
The J&J vaccine used fetal cell lines from a 1985 aborted fetus to produce and manufacture COVID-19 vaccine doses in testing stages, but the vaccines contain no traces of fetal cells (more information here and here).
The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines used no fetal cell lines in production or manufacture and the doses contain no fetal cells.
Proulx has other reasons for not wanting a COVID-19 vaccine.
“Personally it hasn’t affected me, so it’s almost like I’m not incentivized,” Proulx said. “Like, why should I need to get the vaccine right now?”
Proulx said he respects the scientists who worked hard to develop the COVID-19 vaccines, but would like to see more long-term research into their effects. To support this, Proulx talked about his 90-year-old grandmother.
“My grandmother got vaccinated and she’s never had vertigo before, and [now] she has vertigo,” Proulx said.
While vertigo is not a recognized side effect of COVID-19 vaccines by the Centers for Disease Control or Mayo Clinic, some people may experience headaches after vaccination.
Dizziness and lightheadedness after vaccination can occur in people who have a history of dizziness, lightheadedness and fainting after injections.
I don’t know anybody who has died, so I don’t have as good of a perspective or as much perspective as other people do.”
Taylor Proulx, senior 3+1 finance major
Most of all, Proulx said, he lacks perspective about COVID-19, which leads him to be wary of vaccinations.
“You read these headlines, ‘Oh, these are all the people in the ICU, these are all people who have died,’” Proulx said. “I don’t know anybody who has died, so I don’t have as good of a perspective or as much perspective as other people do.”
Proulx is not the only one who thinks perspective is critical.
“A peer-to-peer conversation about getting vaccinated is definitely a tough conversation to have, since there is so much misinformation about [COVID-19] and vaccines being circulated,” said Nicole Mawirther, one of Quinnipiac’s ‘Peer Health Ambassadors’ and a graduate student in the physical therapy program.
“Although we need to be understanding that others can have opinions that differ from our own, we need to make sure that if we do have an opportunity to educate others, we do so with accurate resources,” Mawhirter said.
Mawhirter said she hopes that the Quinnipiac community can be a resource to unvaccinated students to help them make an educated decision.
Sophomore 3+1 graphic design and public relations double major Ephemia Nicolakis also believes perspective and reasoning is important in one’s choice to vaccinate.
“My biggest fear is that [unvaccinated students] chose not to get vaccinated for the wrong reasons,” Nicolakis said. “And my fear with this is that they will spread misinformation along with this to other people, prompting mistrust within our community.”
Exempted and unvaccinated students make up the minority of the student population, at approximately six percent.
Even though I might be around people who aren’t [vaccinated], it is such a small percentage that I am more of a risk to them then they are to me.”
Ephemia Nicolakis, sophomore 3+1 graphic design and public relations double major
“Knowing that [rate] makes me feel so much better about living on campus,” Nicolakis said. “Even though I might be around people who aren’t [vaccinated], it is such a small percentage that I am more of a risk to them than they are to me.”
The risk of contracting COVID-19 is small for vaccinated students, but community safety and health remains important, Hill said.
“You know, vaccinated or not, you can be exposed to the virus,” Hill said. “We know a truism about infectious diseases is that they find the most vulnerable.”
Hill added though that the small percent of students that are unvaccinated on campus, both with valid and false exemptions, are not a major concern for Quinnipiac.
“They’re not going to create a situation where Quinnipiac is going to have to shut down again,” Hill said. “I’m optimistic about that.”
Connecticut College, in New London, announced a “cautionary quarantine” on Monday after a large group of students tested positive for COVID-19. All classes will be remote and the campus will remain in a “Level 3 Orange” for at least a week.
Connecticut College is the first in the state to report a surge in cases and switch to remote learning.
“That is the absolute last thing I want to happen to us. Having fun while being smart is the best thing [we] can do,” Nicolakis said.