Some Universities Require Bivalent COVID Booster

As the U.S. braces for the possibility of a winter surge in COVID-19 cases, some colleges and universities are requiring their students to receive the new bivalent booster shot.

Among those schools are Harvard University, Tufts University, and Wellesley College in Massachusetts; Yale University in Connecticut; and Fordham University in New York City.

Institutions of higher education have said they hope to help stave off high transmission during the spring semester by being proactive when it comes to the latest COVID booster, which protects against both the ancestral strain of the virus as well as the Omicron BA.4/5 variants.

Michael Jordan, MD, MPH, executive medical director of occupational health services and university infection control health director at Tufts, told MedPage Today in an email that the institution’s requirement for all eligible faculty, staff, and students to get the bivalent booster is “in accordance with the university’s current COVID-19 vaccine policies and aligned with U.S. CDC guidance and based upon sound public health principles.”

Jordan said the school continues to “see new cases on our campuses” and that “signals suggest that cases are starting to increase across the United States including in some counties of Massachusetts.”

“The updated (bivalent) booster will provide our students, faculty, and staff protection against the two Omicron sub-variants which are currently the predominant circulating viral strains,” he said.

Jordan added that the school’s goal is “to keep our entire community healthy and safe from widespread, severe infection, including those who are immunocompromised or unvaccinated due to religious or medical accommodation.”

Wellesley College didn’t have a representative available for comment, but Sheilah Horton, PhD, vice president and dean of students, outlined its requirement and its reasoning in a letter to students dated October 11. Horton described the requirement as a “critical step to ensure that we avoid an outbreak early in the spring semester.”

At Fordham University, Bob Howe, associate vice president for communications and special adviser to the university president, told MedPage Today in an email that the bivalent booster requirement isn’t necessarily a new one.

“We have been requiring boosters since they were first rolled out, and have been using the CDC’s definition of up-to-date as the requirement since December 2021,” Howe said.

Notably, there have been reports of pushback regarding bivalent booster requirements at colleges and universities, according to Inside Higher Ed.

It also appears that few other institutions have enacted such a requirement.

Anita Barkin, PhD, MSN, NP-C, co-chair of the COVID-19 Task Force at the American College Health Association (ACHA), told MedPage Today that, anecdotally, the association has not seen a widespread increase in requirements for boosters at colleges and universities across the country.

In some cases, that may be the result of variations in what state laws dictate about COVID vaccine requirements on college campuses, she noted.

Barkin said if institutions do require students and faculty to get the bivalent booster, their rationale should be clearly communicated.

“The American College Health Association has been very clear in stating that we support vaccination, the initial series and the boosters,” Barkin said. Their main reason for doing so is to “protect our most vulnerable students and staff and faculty.”

When asked about students who may have recently recovered from COVID-19, Barkin noted that there are generally exemptions — such as medical or religious exemptions — when it comes to vaccination policies. Thus there should be some flexibility in terms of potentially allowing a student to delay vaccination or boosting in the wake of a documented infection, she said.

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  Jennifer Henderson joined MedPage Today as an enterprise and investigative writer in Jan. 2021. She has covered the healthcare industry in NYC, life sciences and the business of law, among other areas.