B.C. university staff and students ask for more clarity around COVID-19 protocols
CBC
University staff and students in B.C. are asking for more clarity around COVID-19 exposures, rapid testing and remote-learning support one month into an in-person fall term.
Currently, none of the universities in B.C. have mandated vaccines for students, faculty, or staff, and exposure notices within universities are not posted publicly by health authorities.
Those who do experience symptoms at Metro Vancouver's biggest universities — the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University — are not able to access on-campus rapid testing unless they have previously declared themselves unvaccinated or refused to disclose their vaccination status.
The lack of accessible on-campus rapid testing particularly affects disabled students, according to Hannah Sullivan Facknitz, a disabled graduate student and teaching assistant at UBC. There is a rapid testing study at UBC's Vancouver campus, but that is only open to asymptomatic people.
Facknitz, who is immunocompromised and double-vaccinated, experienced COVID-like symptoms a day into classes. But they say they could not risk using public transit to access the nearest testing site nearly an hour away or afford to pay out of pocket for an at-home test.
"In order to keep my job and my spot in my degree program, I had to walk into a classroom and take a risk that people who receive full efficacy from the vaccine did not have to take," they said. "That's what ableism is."
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