BUFFALO, N.Y. — On the surface it sounds chilling.
There's a story going around on social media that claims a college in the Southern Tier is making people wear their COVID vaccination status, literally on their sleeves.
On the Facebook page of New Yorkers Against Medical mandates, a group with nearly 21,000 members, one member posted: “ONE SUNY school just told commuters not vaxxed who receive an exemption that they will need to wear a yellow arm band and post a yellow sign from their rear-view mirrors.”
A disturbing claim
If such a policy did exist, the connotation that could be reached by some is obvious and disturbing, by drawing comparisons to the when Nazis forced Jews to wear yellow stars on their clothing during the Holocaust.
The college insists that there is no policy for those who are not vaccinated to reveal that publicly and appreciated the chance to address the social media post head on.
Our sources for this verification included the Alfred State College Fall 2021 Opening Plan, The State University of New York’s Covid-19 Vaccination Policy, an email sent out by the college in early September, and Alfred State’s Vice President for Student Affairs Greg Sammons.
Confusing email
Attached to the above reference Facebook post were screen shots of an email sent out by Alfred State’s School of Applied Technology in Wellsville.
Dated September 2 and titled “important commuter info,” it advised recipients who were not fully vaccinated that they needed to visit the Wellsville Health Center to be tested and cleared to attend classes. It further states, "You should have gotten an arm band and a hang tag for your rear view mirror.”
Sammons verified the authenticity of the email.
“The email definitely did come from our team,” he confirmed.
However, Sammons acknowledged the precise wording of it perhaps left something to be desired and may have caused some recipients to draw the wrong conclusions.
“I think the way it was written left room for confusion, so I don't fault anyone for having read that email and saying, ‘Hey this isn’t right,' ” he said.
Reopening plan refers to wrist bands
When the fall semester began, the college’s reopening plan did mention that wrist bands would be issued to students following their check in with school medical staff, if they provided either proof of vaccination or proof of a negative COVID-19 test.
According to Sammons, if the student had neither, they were also offered a rapid test, which, if the result was negative, would allow them to enter the campus and begin their semester.
“But nothing about or wrist bands ever indicated whether someone was vaccinated or not,” said Sammons, primarily because all the wrist bands were the same.
“And one of the reasons we did that was actually to protect the privacy of people even more. … You’d know that they were cleared, but it would not indicate necessarily how they were cleared. The purpose of the wrist band was to simply say that, at the initial repopulation point, the person had gone through the clearing of either testing negative, having had a negative test, or showing proof of vaccination.”
Additionally, once cleared, Sammons says students were free to remove them.
“We had no expectation of anyone continue wearing them," he said.
SUNY requires vaccination
As the semester began, and once the Pfizer vaccine was officially approved for use by the FDA, SUNY’s policy was updated to require vaccinations for all students at all schools.
The policy applies for both commuters or campus dwellers alike.
Exemptions can be gained for religious or medical reasons, but even if an exemption from the vaccine is granted the person must still be tested weekly.
That brings us back to the Facebook post, which claimed that at Alfred State those who receive an exemption, had to wear a yellow armband indicating as much.
“No. Absolutely not,” Sammons said. “There is no such requirement, there never has been, and there will never be a requirement that someone that has that difference is ever going to be visually identified.”
“But again,” continued Sammons, “the email as sent out did leave room for that interpretation, and we're accountable for that wording."