AUBe Vaccinated - Working together for a safe return to campus
John Sakr, Contributor
August 8th, 2021
On June 11th, 2021, American University of Beirut students, faculty, and staff received an email from a certain “Vaccination Working Group.” It had been a year and three months since most students had stepped foot on campus. Not only were classes interrupted before being switched to virtual platforms, but social activities, clubs, and campus life, were put on hold. While a few were able to attend campus for some learning activities that were otherwise extremely difficult to conduct (such as a Genetics course laboratory), the AUB campus has been almost empty since March 2020.
The email read the following:
“As President Khuri announced on April 19, AUB led a consortium that secured the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to safely open campuses for the fall 2021 term. The [AUB] allocation of 90,000 vaccine doses will be available for free to all students, faculty staff, as well as unvaccinated members of our employees’ households and close family.”
Almost two months into the campaign, titled “AUBe vaccinated,” various aspects of it are up for discussion.
Firstly, the aim of the campaign is to catalyze the achievement of herd immunity against COVID-19, especially amongst university students. That is one of the best ways, if not the only way, to secure a safe return to campus in the Fall semester of the upcoming academic year (2021-2022). That is the concern of not only AUB, but the entire group of universities that communicated with Pfizer Inc. to secure the doses of vaccine. This list, as per the president’s statement, includes the USJ (Université Saint-Joseph), the LAU (Lebanese American University), and the St. George Hospital University Medical Center, as well as the Lebanese University and three other private non-profit universities, “all of which should be able to resume physical classes in the fall.”
What is most impressive about this vaccination campaign is the logistics behind it: it is somewhat a self-running machine, with the university in-sourcing most of the required components. The institution is utilizing one of its buildings, the Halim and Aida Daniel Academic and Clinical Center (ACC), specifically its main lobby and conference room, as its vaccination center. Five days a week, Lebanese nationals and residents can go get vaccinated there, should they choose to, after having registered and gotten an appointment through the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health’s online platform, MOPH COVAX IMPACT. Starting a few weeks after the abovementioned email, the community receives weekly update emails from the Vaccination Working Group about days where students, faculty, and staff can go and get vaccinated, either by a walk-in system or by appointment. This has mostly been taking place on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, from 4:00 PM until 7:00 PM.
When it comes to who is registering the patients, assessing them, injecting them with the shot, or monitoring them after having received it, AUB Medical Center (AUBMC) staff performed an amazing job. Nonetheless, they were shortly assisted by a joint volunteer force.
The AUB Undergraduate Biology Student Society (BSS), the AUB Lebanese Red Cross Youth Sector Club (LRCYS), as well as Rotaract and UNICEF have all been deploying volunteers to help run the vaccination campaign. From 7:00 AM until 8:00 PM, members are sitting at the Information Desk, at the Registration Desks, the interview stations, the vaccination stations, and the monitoring rooms, ready to assess, register, and vaccinate members of the Lebanese community as well as the AUB community.
While a lot of stories were told and a lot of complaints reported, especially on an informal social media platform for all things AUB, AUB Crushes (on Instagram), it is important to note that all volunteers were thoroughly trained before taking over any station/desk on their own, especially vaccinators. Fully licensed medical professionals as well as administrators of the Medical Center are present at all places and times within the vaccination venue, however vaccinator volunteers were thoroughly trained, vetted, and validated before allowed to take over a vaccination station on their own.
Since this is all on a volunteering basis, it is not incentivized. However, AUB students, whether from BSS or the Lebanese Red Cross Club, will have their efforts recognized with a certificate signed by AUBMC should they complete a specific number of hours at the vaccination drive. Such a certificate of healthcare industry related experience would boost an application to master’s degrees or medical school programs, thus rendering the AUB Vaccination drive self-sufficient: in exchange for the manpower of the volunteers at the institution, the credible institution recognizes their work as a professional profile boost.
Nonetheless, many questions are raised as per the efficiency of the whole vaccination initiative. The process is efficient, but there are a few things that stand in the way of the whole campus community being vaccinated before the Fall semester begins next month. Some people still refuse to get vaccinated, as the anti-vax movement is as popular as ever. This is a whole other topic, though, due to the Lebanese government passing a law that requires showing proof of vaccination or regular testing for citizens to be admitted into businesses, institutions, and venues. Elsewhere, the emergence of the new Delta variant, and the sharp rise in cases (1000+ cases lately), places the whole plan in question. From a third point of view, if the government imposes another lockdown, coming to campus will be prohibited, and nothing can be done despite the community being immunized.
Lastly, there is a dilemma between keeping classes online or returning to campus. Even though there is no official commentary from the University on the matter yet, there are many concerns it will have to address when making the decision: How will students commute to campus with the current car fuel shortages the country is going through? With almost constant electricity cuts, how will students be able to secure internet connection or an adequate environment to attend classes and take examinations? From the other side, the campus is quite large and would require a lot of resources to power it sufficiently for university life to resume. Will there be enough power for air conditioning? Lights? Internet?
We would like to show our appreciation for the healthcare professionals, volunteers, as well as hygiene professionals ensuring the smooth workflow of all vaccination centers, in common efforts to resume life as we know it.