Commentary
The sinking ship of the mandate enthusiasts took on more water this month with the publication of a powerhouse paper by some of the world’s top bioethicists (from Oxford, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and Toronto).
Drawing on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and sponsor-reported adverse event data, the authors claim that booster mandates at universities are wrong because expected net harms for this age group significantly outweigh public health benefits. The authors estimate, for example, that 22,000 to 30,000 previously uninfected adults aged 18 to 29 must be boosted with an mRNA vaccine to prevent one COVID-19 hospitalization. And the cost of preventing that single hospitalization is an anticipated 18 to 98 serious adverse events….