Plus, the Food and Drug Administration will formally approve of the vaccines in mid-October, and at that time, the legalities of banning vaccinations will become different. But expect the posturing to continue. A Republican state senator in Wisconsin is moving forward with a plan to block public universities from doing any COVID-19 testing and screening without approval from GOP lawmakers. State Sen. Steve Nass said his legislative proposal would not require students to inform schools of their vaccination status or wear masks on campus. He said some University of Wisconsin school chancellors are “moving quickly to take advantage of the delta-variant hysteria to enact excessive COVID-19 mandates.”

But what is odd in all this is that these legislators seem to have no ability to do math. There are 14.6 million students at public institutions in the United States and 5.1 million students at private institutions. That’s about 20 million college students. The 18-39 age group, which most all of the student fall into, have a vaccination rate of about 50 percent, the lowest of all adult age groups. . Having an aggressive vaccination campaign in conjunction with the universities could easily move more than 5 million Americans into vaccinated status by the end of September.

But the universities need to take a stand, as former UNC chancellor Thorp wrote, pointing out that “for some public universities in ‘red’ states, where vaccine mandates are not permitted, an aura of uncertainty will hang over the campus and the local community, a foreboding sense that another outbreak could be at hand.”