In the summer before college his school announced that all students had to be boosted, no exemptions of any kind. We fought the vaxx mandate to no avail. He was desperate to go to school and have a normal life. He had applied early decision and had no other options at that point. The school said he needed to get the shot to “avoid long covid” and treated us badly during our exchanges about exemptions. He finally got the shot. His choice not mine. He felt very tired for weeks. He was chronically ill and bed bound within 6 months of the shot and is still very ill today. We now have names for his illness – MCAS, POTS , chronic fatigue syndrome,and he has damage to his right iliac vein. He has not been able to finish college within 4 years, his college years were riddled with illness, we have been bounced around the medical community and charged thousands of dollars but given few answers.
I feel bad for these people, but there were tons of colleges that did not require a COVID shot. They were invariably a lot less expensive than the ones that did require it. One absolutely could go to college and have a normal life without any shots and most definitely without any boosters.
My college, for example, did not require the vax either from students or from faculty. All we had to do to avoid it was to get tested weekly on campus. It was nothing. Nobody got vaccinated against their will on my campus. I taught 100% in person after the first 10-week-long lockdown with no vax requirement.
The COVID lunacy was terrible, and the people who caused it should suffer consequences. I hate all of that crap with intense passion. But it doesn’t remove agency and personal responsibility. All that the people in the OP needed to do was look around for schools which did not require the COVID shot. They would have been less fancy, that’s true, but that would have been a worthwhile exchange, especially since, as we now know, all of this madness was gone two years later.
“The school treated us badly during our exchanges.” First of all, “our”? How many of you were going to that college? Some moms speak in the first-person plural about themselves and their infants. “It looks like we need a diaper change.” Once they hit adulthood, though, it might be a good idea to quit it with the “we.” Especially since no school is going to discuss the health or the status of a student with his parents because it’s illegal. The answer to why this boy is so lacking in agency is right there in the OP.
If you haven’t been on this blog for long, you probably don’t know that I was Team Reality from the first days of the lockdowns. I fought like a tiger to have a normal life for myself, my child, and my students. That fight would have been easier if more people exercised agency and joined the fight instead of sighing helplessly and doing nothing.
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