Although college students are highly unlikely to die from COVID, and although the vaccines are still experimental, with only emergency approval, that's not stopping California's leftist public educational institutions from forcing vaccinations on young people.  Both the University of California system and the California State University system — which are two of the nation's largest public university systems — have announced that all students, faculty, and staff must have proof that they've been vaccinated if they wish to set foot on campus in the fall:

Thursday's joint announcement from the 10-campus University of California and the 23-campus California State University is the largest of its kind in American higher education.

The CSU system in the nation's biggest four-year college system, with about 485,000 students and tens of thousands of staff, while the UC system has more than 280,000 students.

"Together, the CSU and UC enroll and employ more than one million students and employees across 33 major university campuses, so this is the most comprehensive and consequential university plan for COVID-19 vaccines in the country," CSU Chancellor Joseph I. Castro said in the statement.

They're not the only academic institutions imposing this requirement on students.  On the same day, Stanford announced that all 19,000 of its students also need to be vaccinated.

Let's think about this for a moment.  As even the AP article from which I've quoted states, these vaccinations have never been formally approved.  Instead:

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has allowed emergency use of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, with health experts expecting formal approval of at least one of the shots by the fall. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine is on pause due to concerns about blood clots. [The J&J vaccine will soon be coming off that pause.]

In other words, these are still experimental vaccines, and every day, we're learning about new and different features — some good, some not so good.  The fact that Biden is still wandering around double-masked, despite both being vaccinated and being surrounded by people who are also vaccinated, doesn't imbue people with confidence about the vaccines.

I wonder if, for Biden, that mask has become the geriatric equivalent of a security blanket.  Even as his advisers suggest that it might help Americans become more vaccine friendly if he'd take off the darn mask, Biden clutches it as a frightened three-year-old clutches the ragged and dirty lovey blanket that his mommy is trying to throw in the wash.  (AOC reveals just how disgusting those masks really are.)

If the vaccine is an emergency, experimental vaccine, it really should be reserved for those in the higher-risk categories.  That category does not cover university undergraduates, who are usually between 17 and 21 years old.  If they stick around for a longer time for post-graduate degrees, they age into the late 20s and early 30s cohort.

According to the CDC, people under 30 are 10 times more likely to die from COVID than the 5- to 17-year-old cohort.  Once they cross the threshold into 30, they're 45 times more like to die than those young 'uns.

Those numbers (10 times! 45 times!) sounds horrific until you realize that people between 50 and 64 are 440 times more likely to die than the 5–17 crowd; those between 65 and 74 are 1,300 times more likely to die; those between 75 and 85 are 3,200 times more likely to die, and those over 85 are 8,700 times more likely to die!  In other words, the average university student with comorbidities is not likely at all to die.

In a free society, the university would encourage those at risk, especially older faculty and staff members, to get the vaccine.  When it came to students, they would send accurate information about crowded dormitories as possible vectors, as well as letting students know their risk by age and comorbidity.

They could even encourage students to take the vaccine (and here's that leftist talk) to "protect" at-risk people — although, if the at-risk people are taking vaccines, I don't see why a hypothetical very healthy 18-year-old freshman needs to get an experimental stick that seemingly messes with her reproductive organs.

That risk ought to be explored more — although a cynic could argue that it might be better if all these leftist young women don't reproduce.  We should disagree because, when it comes to reproducing, leftists assure us that it's "my body, my choice," including the life-affirming choice to have babies.  It's genuinely frightening to see that these counter-indicated university mandates could permanently remove any choice in their female students.

The government won't issue "vaccine passports."  However, every large institution, both corporate and public, will demand proof of vaccines, with enterprising corporations eventually "partnering" with the government to issue those proofs (AKA vaccine passports).  Let the left's weaponization of COVID continue...

Image: Nurse with a syringe by rawpixel.com.

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