How Should I Deal With an Unvaccinated Student? (The New York Times June 15 2021)

By Kwame Anthony Appiah Published June 15, 2021 Updated June 16, 2021 I run a small group at a college that requires Covid-19 vaccination for students. One student in my group received a religious exemption. I want to start having in-person meetings and functions, but not everyone is comfortable gathering in a room with an unvaccinated person. Even though the risk is small to any one of us because we are vaccinated, some of us have family members who are unable to be vaccinated at the present time. Having an unvaccinated member within the group carries a risk that one of us could become infected and infect an immune-compromised person or otherwise vulnerable family member. Group functions and meetings are vital to my students and especially to new members. They promote learning and exchange of ideas vital to our projects, and social and work-related interactions are important for our work and for team building. Before Covid-19, we would order food and discuss work-related issues and other topics. The Zoom meetings we’ve been having are not a great substitute for this. How can we have group functions and not exclude an unvaccinated person? Should we suggest that the person participate via Zoom? Name Withheld People are free to refuse vaccination for religious reasons, but they may have to deal with the consequences. The fact that most students in your group have been vaccinated substantially lowers their risk of contracting the virus and then infecting other, vulnerable people, but of course not to zero. The C.D.C. currently uses red (least safe), yellow (less safe) and green (safest) scoring to indicate safety when vaccinated and unvaccinated people mingle. There are certainly ways of accommodating this unvaccinated student that would secure a fully green score for all participants — meetings with masks and social distancing and without food; or meeting only outside. But such measures would pose a serious burden. They would impede the easy, free-form interactions that contribute to the group’s functioning. The unvaccinated student who wishes to be included in these interactions, meanwhile, gains nothing when they are eliminated for everyone. The members of your group could reasonably agree to gather in a room with an unvaccinated person who was properly masked and distanced. (Note that it’s the unvaccinated person who is chiefly at risk, earning a C.D.C. “yellow” even when those precautions are taken.) Otherwise, the student could indeed participate via Zoom. This arrangement is far from ideal. The student will not get all the benefits that other members will. But disallowing this student from pre-pandemic-style in-person sessions where everyone, including the student, is unmasked and undistanced wouldn’t represent hostility toward the student or his faith community. It would merely represent C.D.C.-guided vigilance.