IEU letter to CESA re vax Policy – 2 May 2022
2 May 2022
Dr Neil McGoran
Director
Catholic Education SA
By email
Dear Neil,
Re: COVID-19 Vaccination Policy proposal
I further respond to the proposed Vaccination Policy in the light of the Memo of 28 April 2022.
There is no simple answer as to whether the IEU supports (or doesn’t support) a continued vaccination mandate. There is divided opinion in workplaces. Some basic principles will assist the decision making. Decisions should be based on the health advice as a minimum and, if thought necessary, a logical consideration of any proposals in excess of that.
The IEU is content to accept that vaccines are safe and effective and form an important component of our COVID defence. We are not interested in agitating that issue.
The current health advice is that mandates for school staff are no longer necessary, but masks will be for four more weeks. The Chief Public Health Officer, Professor Spurrier, was instrumental in the provision of this advice, but has offered further advice to Catholic and Independent schools.
She extolled the desirability of maximising up to date vaccinations but did not recommend mandating vaccination for school staff. That would have been contrary to the decision to remove the mandate in the first place. Professor Spurrier is essentially saying that vaccination is not essential in schools, but it is still a very good idea. This we can accept as ‘current health advice’ for the purposes of these discussions.
As the pandemic is very fluid and changeable, any policy needs to be set up with reviews at relatively short intervals to judge its ongoing appropriateness. The December 2022 end point is close to the outer limit.
There are 3 options for schools to consider in their consultation period.
- Allow unvaccinated staff to return with no checks and balances – this is compliant with the basic health advice now that the mandate is rescinded. Vaccination might be simply
- Allow unvaccinated staff on site (with or without a booster requirement for vaccinated status) but with extra restrictions as per Department for Education Policy.
- Allow only vaccinated staff on site as proposed by CESA and some AIS schools (with or without a booster requirement).
One of the IEU’s concerns is whether unvaccinated people are more infectious than vaccinated. One reference cited by Professor Spurrier found that the viral load for Omicron was only significantly reduced if the vaccination was ‘up to date’ (i.e. boosted). The obvious conclusion would be that if one is to continue a mandate it should be for ‘up to date’ vaccination as per Department for Education Policy. ‘Fully vaccinated’ (two jabs) is not worth the effort for a mandate.
The other IEU concern related to the relatively large number of unvaccinated students who would pose a collective risk to staff (vaxxed or not) greater than that posed by a few unvaccinated staff. That question was not satisfactorily answered but it was pointed out that the unvaccinated students would be safer if the staff were all vaccinated.
If there is an appetite from management for a policy in excess of the general health advice, it must be reasonable and defensible in both terms of likely effectiveness and onerousness. There must also have been genuine consultation with employees and the IEU.
One would have thought that all general schools would have similar risk profiles and one model would consistently apply across all schools. That is not to be and all three options will probably co- exist when the Catholic and Independent schools settle on their own policies. The Department for Education has probably arrived at the sweet spot in the risk/reward trade off and is worthy of emulating.
A cogent argument may be mounted that to either continue a mandate or to treat unvaccinated staff differently may be ‘reasonable’ and it may or may not be generally supported by the workforce. Where there is not that willingness to accept the continuation of a mandate on effectiveness, risk/reward, philosophical or other grounds, then the policy should not stray too far from the basic health advice or the Department model.
The IEU will continue to engage with the consultation process to balance the health advice with local risk tolerance.
Yours sincerely
Glen Seidel
Secretary
