Getting the Vaccine: Marist Community Awaits Widespread Vaccination
Students and Faculty Address Their Outlook on the Rollout of the COVID-19 Vaccine
The former art building located on 51 Fulton Street served as a pop-up campus vaccination site. Source: Greta Stuckey ‘23
After a full year of living in a global pandemic, Marist community members still attempt to navigate the uncertainty of the COVID-19 virus. With the current rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine, both students and faculty said that they are feeling optimistic that the next few months could be a turning point for the college and the country.
“I am impressed by the speed at which the vaccine was made available but discouraged by how politics and social media caused so much misinformation to be disseminated,” chemistry professor Terrance Paskell said. “This virus presented an opportunity to use a technology that scientists have been working on for decades, so it only appeared that it was a new technology because most people hadn't heard of this type of vaccine before.”
Currently, college professors teaching in-person classes in New York State are eligible to get their vaccine while students without pre-existing conditions or other eligibility qualifications must wait until the last phase, phase 2, to get vaccinated. Some students have been able to get vaccinated through their jobs or because of health conditions, but most of the college student population is currently unvaccinated for COVID-19.
“I think if there was a nationwide college or government push to vaccinate college students this spring, the following semester would be easier and safer for the entire campus community,” Resident Assistant Dutch Bacalso ‘23 said.
Even though in-person professors are now eligible for the vaccine in New York State, they still have to get an appointment, which has proven to be a challenging process for many. With limited doses of the vaccine across the country, vaccine appointments are in high demand. Marist College was selected as a pop-up location for the mass rollout of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine in New York State, but only those eligible were able to try and schedule an appointment.
“I am not sure how it is done here, but at home it's first come, first serve, meaning for the vaccines I got for my mom and grandmother, I had to be on the computer refreshing at three in the morning,” Theriot said. “I also have been trying to get a vaccine for my father, and even though he has been eligible for a month now, I was only able to make an appointment for him this week.”
Theriot was able to get the full vacation at home through her job and said she “faced mild side effects and thinks everyone should get one if they can.” President Biden directed states to make all adults eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine by May 1 if they want one.
Professor Brigid Shanley of the Medical Laboratory Science Accelerated Degree Program at Marist has been working as a medical lab scientist throughout the pandemic. Medical lab scientists have been behind the majority of the work during this past year, such as testing, processing of tests and specimen identification. Many of the lab staff that Shanley has worked with over the past year have been exposed or infected by the virus because of the transmissible nature of COVID-19.
“I do not see any value in rushing the manufacturing of these vaccines to achieve an unrealistic goal,” Shanely said. “‘Everyone’ is not a realistic goal in my mind, I would rather target the highest risk patients. If that population is vaccinated by summer, I think we will have managed a medical miracle. Although we have a natural inclination to hurry along with vaccines which we see as the solution to this pandemic, deliberation and calm should always be our means of management.”