The Crimson White: Rumor Edition, November 2021

RUMOR
November 18, 2021
AINSLEY PLATT
STAFF REPORTER
The University of Alabama has
announced multiple changes to its
COVID-19 policies over the last few
weeks. On Oct. 22, the University
announced that it would comply with
President Joe Biden’s executive order
requiring federal employees to be fully
vaccinated against COVID-19. A week
later, on Oct. 29, an email sent to the
campus community announced that the
requirement for vaccinated individuals
to wear masks indoors would be lifted on
Nov. 5, with some exceptions.
‘A pre-COVID world’
With the mask mandate lifted, many
students feel that there has been a return
to pre-COVID-19 normalcy. For some,
there is division on whether or not this is a
positive or negative development.
Payton Greenlee, a sophomore
majoring in marketing, said he feels
that having “normal” life continue is
more important than worrying about
COVID-19, and that it wasn’t worth
implementing COVID-19 restrictions at
the expense of normal activities like inperson
classes.
He said he did not think the University
should have restrictions for COVID-19
when they did not implement them for
other illnesses in the past.
“I have caught [COVID-19] before,
and it affected me no different than
having a fever does,” Greenlee said. “I
don’t think the campus should be worried
about COVID.”
The admin has failed
miserably at their job
of protecting students,
faculty, staff and the
greater Tuscaloosa
community. It is utterly
ridiculous that no one
was held accountable.
SKY DUNN
Gabrielle Kirk, a freshman majoring
in secondary education, said that as
temperatures drop, it’s even more
important for the campus community
to be on its guard for a COVID-19
resurgence, and she criticized those who
are celebrating the return to normal.
“We can’t get to a [pre-COVID-19]
society unless people get their vaccine
and booster shots and our body evolves to
handle the COVID-19 strain,” Kirk said.
“[Students] don’t want to get vaccinated,
don’t want to wear a mask, don’t want to
social distance, but want a pre-COVID
world. Science and viruses don’t work
like that.”
According to data released by the
University on Oct. 22, at least 62% of UA
students have received at least one dose of
a COVID-19 vaccine.
Dr. Richard Friend, a member of the
University of Alabama System Health
and Safety Task Force and the dean
of the College of Community Health
Sciences, said the University is following
the science in lifting its mask mandate for
vaccinated individuals.
Is COVID still a concern for campus?
The Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention says that “everyone should
wear a mask in public, indoor settings,”
regardless of vaccination status, in
areas of substantial to high community
transmission levels. Tuscaloosa County
currently has a substantial level of local
transmission, as it did when the University
announced it would remove the mask
mandate. When the mask mandate
was lifted on Nov. 5, the county was
experiencing a high level of transmission.
According to the CDC, a substantial
level of COVID-19 transmission is
considered to be between 50 and 100 cases
per 100,000 people, or a test positivity rate
between 8% and 10%. Tuscaloosa County
currently has about 83 cases per 100,000
people, with 4.66% of COVID-19 tests in
the county coming back positive.
Some students like Greenlee said
they believe that COVID-19 is no worse
than the flu and therefore is nothing
to worry about. Friend did not offer a
direct response to this, instead stressing
that “we should still be concerned about
COVID-19 and we still need to be
concerned about the flu.”
Narratives that compare the flu to
COVID-19 have been viewed with
skepticism by public health authorities
due to the disparities in the diseases’
respective death tolls and the fact that
COVID-19 spreads faster than the flu.
While the flu can be deadly for those
who catch it — the CDC estimates that
the flu kills between 12,000 and 52,000
each year — over 750,000 people have
died from COVID-19 in the United States
since the beginning of the pandemic, with
that number climbing by the thousands
daily. Overall, there is a consensus that
COVID-19 is much more severe than the
flu.
‘No one was held
accountable’
A bill signed into law earlier this year
by Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey prohibits state
entities and private businesses from asking
individuals to provide proof of vaccination.
The law effectively renders the University’s
updated mask requirements, which still
require unvaccinated individuals to wear
masks indoors, unenforceable.
“The state law is the state law,”
Friend said. “I would just encourage
[unvaccinated individuals] to do the right
thing. They’re all on the honor system.”
The other two universities in the
UA System, the University of Alabama
at Birmingham and the University of
Alabama in Huntsville, continue to
require masks indoors on their campuses,
despite having lower levels of virus
transmission in their counties than in
Tuscaloosa County.
UAB spokesperson Alicia Rohan
said the policy is not likely to change
anytime soon.
“UAB plans to maintain an indoor
masking requirement for the rest of
the calendar year while we continue to
monitor local COVID transmission rates,
hospitalizations, and other relevant data,”
she said in an email.
Requests for comment from UAH were
not returned.
Jefferson County, where UAB is
located, has moderate levels of local
virus transmission. Madison County,
where UAH is located, is also in the
moderate range. Both counties have
significantly lower levels of transmission
than Tuscaloosa County, which has a
substantial level of transmission according
to the CDC website tracking transmission
levels in individual counties.
Sky Dunn, a junior majoring in history,
said she is tired of the University saying
one thing and then doing another. Due
to her immunocompromised status, she
is at higher risk of contracting severe
COVID-19.
“The admin has failed miserably at their
job of protecting students, faculty, staff
and the greater Tuscaloosa community,”
Dunn said. “It is utterly ridiculous that no
one was held accountable.”
Dunn also stated that the requirement
for unvaccinated people to still wear masks
indicates that the University knows it’s not
safe to unmask, but chose to change the
policy anyways.
“By the admin writing the policy, they
acknowledge that if you are not vaccinated,
you need to wear a mask, which shows
that they are aware that people should
be wearing masks,” she said. “It does not
resonate with the political beliefs of the
admin of the school.”
The University has only cited Biden’s
executive order for why it chose to lift the
mask mandate. Open records requests for
the specific information used to make the
decision have not been answered.
‘Very few COVID-19 cases’
This semester has seen cases among
students, faculty and staff drop significantly
below the peak from fall 2020. Between
Nov. 1 and Nov. 7, six students and three
faculty or staff members have reported
testing positive for the virus.
Between Aug. 9 and Nov. 7, 685 new
cases have been reported among students,
and 191 new cases have been reported
among the faculty and staff. Around this
point last year the University had more
than 2,800 new cases reported by students
during the semester, while about 340 cases
were reported among faculty and staff in
the same period this year.
“We have very few COVID-19 cases on
our campus; our positivity rate is under
1%,” Friend said.
The number of cases this semester
is significantly lower than last fall, but
compared to last year, the University’s
testing operations are less robust. Last
year, the University required entry
and exit testing, as well as sentinel
testing for those who participated in
on-campus activities.
Students can voluntarily be tested at the
Student Health Center, University Medical
Center or an off-campus medical provider,
but they are no longer required to be
tested regularly, with some exceptions for
student-athletes.
Friend was unavailable for followup
questions regarding the changes to
testing resources.
‘Not everyone is vaccinated’
While campus COVID-19 cases
on campus remain low this semester,
transmission in surrounding Tuscaloosa
County areas remain high, and it is
still unknown how the lifting of some
masking measures will affect campus
infection numbers.
The University dashboard does not
list the number of students who are fully
vaccinated, only those who have received
at least one dose. In order to be fully
vaccinated, one must receive two doses of
either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, or
one dose of the Johnson & Johnson shot.
One dose of the Pfizer and Moderna
vaccines provides significantly less
protection. The protection afforded by
vaccines have also been shown to decrease
1B
over time. Requests for information
on how many students have been fully
vaccinated have not been answered.
“If you don’t want to be vaccinated,
chances are you probably don’t want
to wear a mask or don’t wear one at all,”
Dunn said. “They know that not everyone
is vaccinated, and yet most people aren’t
wearing masks.”
[Students] don’t want
to get vaccinated, don’t
want to wear a mask,
don’t want to social
distance, but want
a pre-COVID world.
Science and viruses
don’t work like that.
GABRIELLE KIRK
All UA employees are required to
comply with the vaccine mandate by Jan.
4, but employees can apply for medical,
disability or religious exemptions. A
bill signed into state law on Nov. 5 by
Ivey made it illegal for employers to fire
employees who refuse a COVID-19
vaccine and claim a medical or
religious exemption.
The University has not publicly
outlined plans for employees who refuse
the vaccine. There is currently no available
information on how the University
evaluates exemption requests, or how
many people have requested one. The
exemption request forms were taken
down from the UA Vaccine Management
Portal on Nov. 5 and made available again
on Nov. 11.
‘Whatever measures are
necessary’
Many students believe that the
campus no longer needs to worry about
COVID-19, citing reasons ranging
from increased vaccination numbers to
incorrect beliefs that COVID-19 is no
worse than the flu.
“I think we are totally in the clear,”
said Saylor Collum, a freshman majoring
in public relations. “I think things are
normal again, and we need to start acting
that way.”
According to Friend, the campus should
still be concerned about COVID-19.
“There’s still a lot we don’t know about
COVID-19; we still have cases, very few
cases but still, we have cases across the
country and in young people,” Friend said.
“I think everybody needs to get vaccinated
and take the necessary precautions to try
and prevent it.”
Friend said that the University is
committed to keeping the campus safe,
and that measures could be taken in the
future if necessary.
“We will implement whatever measures
are necessary, at the times necessary,
to keep campus safe as we have done,”
he said.
Dunn made it clear what she thought
people should do if they think COVID-19
is no longer a concern.
“People who think we should move on
from COVID-19 should get off Facebook
and call [their] local hospital,” Dunn said.
“See how many ICU beds are full and
how exhausted the staff is from fighting
this pandemic. Let’s try to get each other
through this hard time instead of fighting
CW File