Unvaccinated faculty and students are harassed with weekly COVID tests in my workplace.
Here’s what happens when a professor misses a weekly test.
COVID tracers send a list of their names to HR.
HR sends a list of their names to the Dean.
The Dean sends a list of their names to the Chair.
The Chair harasses them individually.
Why such a complex, Byzantine system? Why not just send them an email from the very first stop in this chain?
I’ve lived in a totalitarian society, so let me explain: nobody cares if you get tested or not. This isn’t about that. The goal is to involve as many people as possible in spying and snitching on each other. The goal is to make the non-compliant massively hated because so many people have to waste time and effort on bullying them to comply. The goal is to ensure that as many people as possible know their names – completely in violation of all the usual protections of medical privacy.
The process is repeated every week into infinity. How fast does the Dean and the Chair remember the names of the people who are causing all this bother all the time? How soon before they begin to – maybe completely unwittingly and subconsciously – to discriminate against the annoying personnel?
Add to this that the list given to me of the “lower-caste” workers in my department was actually 100% incorrect. They couldn’t have gotten tested on campus even if they really wanted. They are teaching online (we are still only 30% back) and two of them are out of state. I know for an absolute fact that at least one of them is fully vaccinated and extremely fanatical about it. Anybody who worked in a bureaucracy knows that with each extra step added to any procedure, the potential for mistakes quadruples.
This procedure, as well as microaggression trainings, anti-racisms, and diversity efforts, aim to isolate workers and make them fear and dislike each other. Please think about it before you participate.
Clarissa's Blog 
At least our University is more efficient about this. They send one email per person who missed the weekly testing copying everyone (dean, chair, and the offending faculty/student). If this is about a student, it also goes to their academic advisor. The emails only start to appear, albeit with a high frequency, after approximately 2-3 missed weeks of testing.
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Your university is actually less efficient from the viewpoint of establishing successful totalitarian practices. I’m sure your library still houses books and not sleeping pods. Falling behind the times, my friend!
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I’m sure that sooner or later, we will catch up. Our faculty will gladly lead the charge to push the administration to get there.
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More totally normal and not scary creeping totalitarianism at all from Australia…
translation: Australia. The fight against COVID-19 enters a new level. Police officers go to random houses and ask residents if they’ve heard of protests against restrictions being organized or have heard people talking about (organizing protests).
https://twitter.com/synxchaosu/status/1432113485857632256
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Can we really call it “creeping” at this point?
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