Coronavirus in Massachusetts (Cambridge, New Bedford, Somerville: universities, to live, restaurants)

[id77]

Originally Posted by mdovell

Actually it does

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-...vaccine-2021-5

"One thing is clear: All 27 member states will accept, unconditionally, all those who are vaccinated with vaccines that are approved by EMA," Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, told The Times, referring to the European Medicines Agency. The EMA has authorized all three vaccines used in the US: Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson."

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...nated-tourists

"Under the proposal, member states would be obliged to accept proof for all shots approved in the EU -- including those produced by Pfizer Inc.-BioNTech SE, AstraZeneca Plc, Moderna Inc. and Johnson & Johnson."

"National governments will have the discretion to accept shots that have cleared the World Health Organization emergency use listing process, but they can’t recognize other vaccines on their own. This means people inoculated with Russia’s Sputnik or the Sinopharm and Sinovac shots from China will not be allowed to travel freely to the EU solely based of their immunization status."


So yes if you have a Russian or Chinese shot you CANNOT travel to the EU.

Look you can't have different standards and pretend it's equal. We can talk about sharing the patents but in no way is Sinovac and Sinopharm equal to anything coming out of the EU and USA. I thought Sputnik was good

https://extranet.who.int/pqweb/sites...3April2021.pdf

As we can see there's actually other vaccines as well but not everything has been fully WHO approved.

If the EU isn't letting those in with lower ranked vaccines what makes us think academia in Boston can skirt around this?

Keep in mind students can't just show up. There's a visa process
https://thepienews.com/news/us-annou...brazil-europe/

“The F-1 visa in China has been closed for 14 months. Appointments have been continuously cancelled weekly till April 30.”

He said there was an estimation of 200,000 F-1 student visas to be processed in China in May, June and July. As reported in The PIE, currently, “some students with means and third party support choose to go to third countries like Singapore to obtain the visa”, said Chen.

He explained that according to the department of state data, in the period of February 2020 to January 2021, only 48 F-1 student visas have been issued, comparing 103,086 F-1 issued in the previous 12 month period."

So yeah when some say the border isn't *really* closed but when you go from 103,086 approvals to 48 that's a pretty significant drop.

Visas get complicated

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com...w/82285231.cms

This makes sense. If a class is an online class it makes no sense to allow people to come here just to take it online and bear the brunt of possible exposure.

Visas from India have declined significantly as well, about 66%
https://www.freepressjournal.in/mumb...ity-us-embassy
"As per the data reports of the US Department of State-Bureau of Consular Affairs, 15,323 F-1 (which is the visa required for a student academic or language training programme in the USA) or student visas were issued to Indian students for the fiscal year (FY) 2020 calculated from October 1, 2019 to September 30, 2020 by the United States Embassy and Consulate General in India. While in FY 2019, 43,714 F-1 or student visas were issued to Indian students."

We're reading this differently. EU nations must accept visitors with approved vaccines, but have the discretion to not accept the non-approved ones. The EU allows member nations to decide on their own whether or not to accept visitors with other vaccines. The very next paragraph tries to clarify this a bit:

"The new rules include a so-called emergency brake, which would allow member states to restore travel bans on countries where risky new variants emerge or contagion rates spike."

Big difference between can and must.

So, what this article shows is that the change is that EU member nations are compelled to allow visitors with approved vaccines. It does not compel them to block visitors with non-approved vaccines.

So, my answer for Boston academia is the same as for EU nations -- money. Most EU nations will almost certainly allow visitors with non-approved vaccines and keep the 'emergency brake' option in their back pocket because they're not going to turn away tourism dollars. The US is going to allow international students in but keep the option to close the valve because those students bring in dollars.

[mdovell]

Originally Posted by yesmaybe

The EU isn't the US?

In the earlier posts I brought up the article that BU is allowing people that are vaccinated in their home countries to come over even though in the EU they wouldn't allow that.

Academia doesn't control health policy let alone the visa policy. To suggest that each vaccines has the same protection doesn't make sense. We can't let economic pressures compromise public health again. There's nothing wrong with having a standard and sticking to it.

[id77]

Originally Posted by mdovell

In the earlier posts I brought up the article that BU is allowing people that are vaccinated in their home countries to come over even though in the EU they wouldn't allow that.

Academia doesn't control health policy let alone the visa policy. To suggest that each vaccines has the same protection doesn't make sense. We can't let economic pressures compromise public health again. There's nothing wrong with having a standard and sticking to it.

What? We do this every single day of the week.

[mdovell]

https://www.masslive.com/coronavirus...next-year.html

"Moderna announced an agreement early Monday to supply 500 million coronavirus vaccine doses to dozens of the lowest-income countries in the world as part of the global COVAX initiative, though most of the shots won’t arrive until next year.

As part of the agreement with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, 34 million doses will begin to be delivered in the fourth quarter of 2021, and another 466 million shots will be made available in 2022, according to a statement from Moderna."

Right now WHO has approved five vaccines and the china and russian one are not in that listing. It isn't going to kill the boston economy to wait a semester or two to get the gold standards.

Until those other vaccines have WHO approval it's going to be a hard argument that people should come in. Either we take the vaccine to them or they take it here. From the looks of things companies are non profits are going to bring it there. Gradually we're getting past this. We're even planning to close down mass vaccination sites
https://www.masslive.com/coronavirus...aker-says.html

Let's say you are in Brazil. Why even bother taking the china one (that's what's used there) if you can hold out to get the others if you plan to study in the US? Just take the class online for a semester and show for the next semester.

Remember when UMass thought they could quarantine students in Amherst? Let's suppose we just let in anyone vaccinated on anything or not. Ok then what? If it was some isolated area ok I can get testing and quarantine for two weeks but these are college students. UMass Amherst is much more isolated than the boston metro area.
https://www.masslive.com/coronavirus...isconduct.html

[id77]

Originally Posted by mdovell

https://www.masslive.com/coronavirus...next-year.html

"Moderna announced an agreement early Monday to supply 500 million coronavirus vaccine doses to dozens of the lowest-income countries in the world as part of the global COVAX initiative, though most of the shots won’t arrive until next year.

As part of the agreement with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, 34 million doses will begin to be delivered in the fourth quarter of 2021, and another 466 million shots will be made available in 2022, according to a statement from Moderna."

Right now WHO has approved five vaccines and the china and russian one are not in that listing. It isn't going to kill the boston economy to wait a semester or two to get the gold standards.

Until those other vaccines have WHO approval it's going to be a hard argument that people should come in. Either we take the vaccine to them or they take it here. From the looks of things companies are non profits are going to bring it there. Gradually we're getting past this. We're even planning to close down mass vaccination sites
https://www.masslive.com/coronavirus...aker-says.html

Let's say you are in Brazil. Why even bother taking the china one (that's what's used there) if you can hold out to get the others if you plan to study in the US? Just take the class online for a semester and show for the next semester.

Remember when UMass thought they could quarantine students in Amherst? Let's suppose we just let in anyone vaccinated on anything or not. Ok then what? If it was some isolated area ok I can get testing and quarantine for two weeks but these are college students. UMass Amherst is much more isolated than the boston metro area.
https://www.masslive.com/coronavirus...isconduct.html

I can't speak for individual Brazilians, but the first thought that comes to mind is urgency. If I'm watching my friends and family get sick or die all around me, and there's any vaccine available to me now, I'd seriously consider 50-60% efficacy now versus nothing now and 90% efficacy in 6-12 months. Is it rational? Debatable, but most humans aren't very good at being rational, especially about salient dangers.

This all reminds me of the recent NYT article about COVID fears: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/19/b...r-navalny.html

[htfdcolt]

Originally Posted by mdovell

In the earlier posts I brought up the article that BU is allowing people that are vaccinated in their home countries to come over even though in the EU they wouldn't allow that.

Academia doesn't control health policy let alone the visa policy. To suggest that each vaccines has the same protection doesn't make sense. We can't let economic pressures compromise public health again. There's nothing wrong with having a standard and sticking to it.

I honestly don't see your point. First of all, I think you're making the mistake of using the layperson's interpretation of efficacy. As others have stated, coming to the US with *any* vaccine, coupled with the youth of college students, is far better than the alternative. From the standpoint of public health risk, I'm far more concerned about the 30+% domestic idiots who do not plan to get vaxxed.

[yesmaybe]

From Baker's PC today, MA will start to wind down the MassVax sites by the end of June and might start to offer walkups.

Also it seems they have ended the pre-registration. You can directly sign up again.

[mdovell]

I have no issue at all with vaccination. by all means require it for anything in person. Drive up the vaccination rate to 99% as far as I'm concerned. But we've already seen how some don't get a second shot and the debates of J&J. What if they get say the china ones at 50% efficacy and that's it..they don't want to take another one (or two for modera and Pfizer).

If the standards are not the same then it isn't good. If you run a business and you want to hire a company to do criminal background checks and one does it soup to nuts and the other just does a quick glance who do you think gets hired? If it gets approved by WHO so be it but until then they aren't getting in the EU and probably shouldn't go to the US for that matter.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-...0the%20vaccine.

We seem to know quite a bit more on the effectiveness of other vaccines than the ones from China. If their own CDC says it isn't good who are we to say otherwise?

Gao Fu, head of the Chinese Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, on Saturday said at a conference the current vaccines "don't have very high rates of protection".

He suggested that the China was considering mixing Covid-19 vaccines, as a way of boosting efficacy.

"Mr Gao explained that steps to "optimise" the vaccine process could include changing the number of doses and the length of time. He also suggested combining different vaccines for the immunisation process.

But he later appeared to backtrack on his comments, telling state media Global Times that "protection rates of all vaccines in the world are sometimes high, and sometimes low".

"How to improve their efficacy is a question that needs to be considered by scientists around the world," he told the paper."

since students can pretty much take things online that lowers exposure and the institutions can still receive revenue.

[htfdcolt]

Originally Posted by mdovell

I have no issue at all with vaccination. by all means require it for anything in person. Drive up the vaccination rate to 99% as far as I'm concerned. But we've already seen how some don't get a second shot and the debates of J&J. What if they get say the china ones at 50% efficacy and that's it..they don't want to take another one (or two for modera and Pfizer).


"How to improve their efficacy is a question that needs to be considered by scientists around the world," he told the paper."

since students can pretty much take things online that lowers exposure and the institutions can still receive revenue.

Again, I think you're barking up the wrong tree. I'll accept the public health risks of international students coming in with a 50% efficacy vaccine, vs. a large chunk of a population with no vaccine (i.e. 0% efficacy), all day long.

[yesmaybe]

https://abc7ny.com/covid-vaccine-ind...rges/10572704/

Baker's PC also hinted at this - the FDA vote to lower Pfizer age to 12 could be this week.