With the campus back in full swing, public health experts said Harvard’s Covid-19 policies are reasonable for now, but called on university officials to stay prepared for the possibility of another surge.
Beginning of last semesterHarvard has relaxed its masking and testing protocols. Masks are encouraged but are optional in most indoor settings, and while students have been required to take an antigen test when returning to campus, the university will stop sponsoring Optional PCR Tests later this month.
Harvard Health Services encouraged affiliates to take advantage of the eight free antigen tests available to them through their private insurance.
“By heading to school, you’re in a position where things are generally in a good shape,” said John S. Brownstein, a professor at Harvard Medical School who is chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital. “But we have to anticipate the fact that it is possible that the school will have to retest and re-disappear, depending on what the monitoring data says.”
Thomas said. Denny, director of operations at Duke University’s Human Vaccine Institute, said higher positivity rates are likely to cause crowds to gather indoors as the weather cools.
“The virus will decide when it ends with us, not when we finish it,” he said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we see some numbers increasing during the fall and winter - it’s hard to tell just yet.”
Enrolled students are required to be up to date on Covid-19 vaccinations, which means they must have received all doses in their initial series and subsequent boosters for which they were eligible as of the start of the calendar year.
As of August 31, 74 percent of all Cambridge residents have been fully vaccinated.
On Thursday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention authorized new Covid-19 boosters that target more transmissible variants. Some experts said more data is needed to understand how the vaccine will be released to the public.
Assistant Professor at Harvard School of Public Health Eric J. It’s very likely “that a booster drug is safe.” Until we know that, I think it’s really hard to put policies in place.”
When Harvard University dropped its mask mandate in March, disability justice advocates on campus They expressed their concerns About the danger an optional mask policy may pose to immunocompromised affiliates. While some health experts said those on campus should be aware of risk levels for others, they added that most protection should come from the practices of at-risk individuals.
“While we need to be respectful, there are also practical limits to what can be done,” said Daniel Koretzkis, chief of infectious diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. “You can’t ask for an entire population to be hidden because a small portion of that population is at risk.”
Michael T. Osterholm, who served on President Joe Biden’s transition advisory board on Covid-19, said the United States has bypassed strict public health restrictions, making it difficult to re-implement them without a serious pretext.
“What happens is that we see society has decided, ‘We’re done with it [masks]Olsterhom, who added that transmission of Covid-19 remains a “real risk” for much of the American public.
Although he admits that setting policy around the pandemic is difficult, infectious disease specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital Amir M.
“What I would like to see from the authorities that have collected this guidance is what are the criteria by which more rigorous testing and contact tracing will be reinstated - which has been done previously -,” Mohareb said.
Should new variants of Covid-19 emerge, Brownstein said, sound policy at the start of the semester may not be possible within two months.
“The pandemic has taught us that things can change very quickly,” he said. “People need to be flexible.”
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