The University of Waterloo's own data show that its "vaccination requirement" failed to make campus safer
But its president now says that compliance, not safety, was the true goal.
The University of Waterloo (UW) issued its "vaccination requirement" to "reduce the spread of COVID-19" on campus.
But UW's own published historical data over an eight-month period indicate that its requirement was associated with only 1 fewer positive covid-19 test on campus every two months, a number not meaningfully different from zero.
The default hypothesis is that UW's requirement had no additional benefit, against the backdrop of local conditions and measures implemented by the proper authorities. In other words, in the local circumstances, UW's requirement did not meaningfully reduce cases. UW's data support this hypothesis.
Judged by its stated objective and its own data, UW’s requirement failed. Campus was not safer or healthier because of it. A demonstrably failed policy is not a reasonable or expedient precaution.
This failure matches the conclusion of the Chief Medical Health Officer of Vancouver Coastal Health, who recently concluded there is
no material difference in likelihood that a … student or staff member who is vaccinated or unvaccinated may be infected and potentially infectious to others.
In a recent interview with the Waterloo Region Record (paywalled), UW president Vivek Goel was asked about the situation. He made three points:
This response is unsatisfactory on all points.
First, shockingly, Goel implies that compliance itself was the goal (high compliance shows that the policy succeeded). This contradicts the requirement's stated objective, which impugns the honesty and integrity of UW's communication on the topic. It is also arbitrary and authoritarian.
Second, disappointingly, when confronted with data on the actual ineffectiveness of UW’s policy, Goel retreats into the vagaries of counterfactual ignorance. This highly unscientific turn is unbecoming "a leading public-health researcher … and champion for the use of research evidence in health policy making." A coercive policy should be judged based on evidence of its actual consequences, not its architect's retrospective, and easily self-serving, assessment of what might have been.
Third, imposing a "vaccination requirement" did not hasten UW's ability to bring people back on campus. UW was able to do that all along. It was always a choice of when and how UW's campus came back to life.
Whether we judge by its originally stated objective or by its president’s recent attempt to move the goalposts, UW’s “vaccination requirement” is a failed, unjustifiable, or pointless policy.