LSU requires vaccination for attendance

[MWBATL]

See ya.

Enjoy all the empty seats around you. Hope you prefer empty stadiums t those filled with excited fans.

 

[MWBATL]

Trying to thread the needle here, with regards to the school's position I think it may come down to limiting liability and the school's own culpability in potential negative outcomes. A challenge throughout all of these discussions is that people have their own risk tolerance and individuals often find different concerns in the same problem set to be focused on.

Take for example companies requiring their employees to get vaccinated prior to coming back on site (or show negative tests within X hours of stepping onto a corporate campus):


Back to the School Example, and more specifically GT's challenges in this, there are a few reasons they may want to do everything within their control to limit covid exposure at games (in no specific order):

• The conferences this year have said they won't reschedule games due to Covid stopping you from fielding a competitive team.
• Generally in society, sports are a great way to relax and blow of steam from the stressors of life (something we all definitely need given the times) but they also offer a pretty efficient transmission path. People tailgating close together, sharing food and drinks, packing together in lines to enter the stadium, shouting around and on top of eachother while singing or cheering, etc. Yes it is outside, but exposure and time are two factors that increase risk of transmission.
• If you accept, as a baseline, that vaccines reduce the occurrence of serious or deadly symptoms it becomes harder to not support the use of them as a tool to prevent bad outcomes for fans and the GT Community writ large.

I understand the concerns many people have about individual risk of using the vaccines. My wife and I each got separate doses (I got Pfizer and she got Moderna) because it felt like a way to limit some risk. Ultimately though, we decided the protection it gives us from developing worse symptoms, combines with the good it does for our larger population made the choice clear for us to get them.

I don't mean to proselytize for vaccines in this post (though I do think people should get them), but I do wonder why people who don't want to make the personal decision to get vaccinated are struggling to understand why an organization like LSU or GT would want to mandate this? Is the disconnect that people against a mandate believe GT's medical group undervalues the risks to individuals you're concerned about or is it more that you don't like the idea of a school forcing you to do something you've decided to do?

Thank you for the thoughtful and balanced reply. I generally agree with what you have said.

My only real question is a simpler one....why does a school need to worry about this issue? If you are vaccinated, your chances of dying are vanishingly slim. I f you are NOT vaccinated, well, that's YOUR choice and the results are on you, not the school. So, is this a liability issue that the school is trying to avoid? Or what?

 

[kg01]

Not sure what's so complicated. I imagine schools don't want their events to become superspreaders. Vaccine mandate is a way to at least try to avoid that, no?

 

[MidtownJacket]

Thank you for the thoughtful and balanced reply. I generally agree with what you have said.

My only real question is a simpler one....why does a school need to worry about this issue? If you are vaccinated, your chances of dying are vanishingly slim. I f you are NOT vaccinated, well, that's YOUR choice and the results are on you, not the school. So, is this a liability issue that the school is trying to avoid? Or what?

I agree with you and @kg01 I think it is as much an image / brand protection as it is doing a “social service”.

Another example ( not politicized) is the winter storm we had in Houston earlier this year. The power production failed at numerous sites just at we hit peak demand so the spot price of electricity went through the roof. There were TONS of people who thought they were smarter than the average bear who were on variable electric plans based on the spot price of power.

The companies offering those plans went so far as messaging customers to warn of signicant price increases and huge bills. A lot of people stayed on the plan then sued and raised holy hell about their plan cost. The business went out of business because they couldn’t refund the customers and pay their costs but had to keep the lights on (literally) anyway.

I believe schools look at this as being a nightmare PR wise either way but view caution as being the more prudent path.

 

[85Escape]

Enjoy all the empty seats around you. Hope you prefer empty stadiums t those filled with excited fans.

Actually, I'll enjoy not being around people who throw tantrums and threaten to quit because don't like something. And I'll enjoy being around fans for whom rooting for GT is more important than personal comfort. What I really wanted to say was "Can I haz your stuff?"