The university dropped its COVID booster requirement in May 2023, but before dropping this requirement on Tuesday, new students had to be vaccinated in order to attend the institution.
Twila Brase, president and co-founder of Citizens' Council for Health Freedom, says Harvard is not the only place that has held on to such a mandate.
"There are too many universities around the United States that still require the COVID shot, and therefore, it is a great thing that Harvard has decided to drop it," she responds. "But they are really behind the ball on doing this, particularly because it has been shown that the shot can cause significant injury to college-age people, while college-age people tend to get through COVID-19 perfectly fine."
The mandate, she says, was unnecessary and potentially harmful to the students.
Brase also notes that the university's announcement comes just after the CDC dropped its five-day isolation recommendation.
"It's possible, as the CDC is moving forward in the right direction to drop all these things related to COVID, that Harvard has decided to drop their restrictions and mandates as well," she submits. "So, [it's] hard to say how those two interrelated, but it seems like it's a possibility."
Amid the continued idea that these restrictions and mandates were a good idea in the first place, Brase speculates that Harvard's health services may have taken so long because they did not want to appear as though they have changed their thinking on it or that they could have been wrong in the first place.
Meanwhile, Harvard continues to push students to wear masks, even though they do not prevent the spread of COVID.
