The Harvard Graduate Council mulled student government priorities and institutional challenges brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic in its first public meeting of the semester Wednesday evening.
The Council which represents all twelve of the University’s graduate and professional schools communicates graduate student needs with Harvard administrators including University President Lawrence S. Bacow and Provost Alan M. Garber ’76. Wednesday’s meeting marked the start of biweekly public meetings, held over Zoom during the pandemic.
The meeting opened with remarks by Harvard University Health Services Director Giang T. Nguyen, who said there will “probably be stages” to the potential reopening of campus come fall. Despite a recent decline in Covid-19 cases across the country, the risk of infection remains due to the emergence of new variants, Nguyen added.
Harvard University Health Services Director Giang T. Nguyen said during a faculty meeting Tuesday that the University has nearly completed vaccinating all Harvard affiliates eligible to receive the Covid-19 vaccine in Phase One of Massachusettsâ distribution plan.
Harvard is prepared to begin Phase Two vaccinations â which include individuals ages 75 and older, per state guidelines â once the University receives more shipments of the vaccine from the state, Nguyen said.
âThere is some level of communication with the state, but we have not been able to get as much detail from them as we would like,â Nguyen said. âBut I know that in recent communication with them, they could not give as much vaccines as they would like to give.â
As others struggle with low vaccine supply, colleges and hospitals have a surplus problem
Conflicting, ambiguous state guidance creates confusion in vaccine rollout
By Deirdre Fernandes and Kay Lazar Globe Staff,Updated January 27, 2021, 8:45 p.m.
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Northeastern University had nearly 2,000 doses of precious COVID vaccine sitting in freezers
last week after most of its front-line and emergency workers already had been immunized. So college officials informed the state that they planned to use the leftovers on other employees, including older adults and those with multiple medical conditions, who would soon be eligible under the state plan.
On Monday, the university started immunizing those workers and planned to give shots to some 730 people throughout the week. But by Tuesday, the schoolâs vaccination clinic had come to an abrupt halt. The state wanted the college to limit immunizations to people who were 75 or older, a relatively tiny group on a college ca
Amid skyrocketing nationwide case counts of Covid-19, Harvard administrators announced Monday that the College is cautiously moving forward with welcoming increased numbers of students back to campus for the spring semester.
In December, Harvard College announced that it would expand on-campus living to prioritize seniors, juniors who were enrolled in fall 2020, and students with learning environment needs.
Writing to all University affiliates Monday morning, University President Lawrence S. Bacow cited “record high numbers of cases worldwide and in the United States” as cause for caution and increased flexibility for spring plans.
“Those plans depend on the status of the pandemic and may need to change if the situation continues to deteriorate,” Bacow wrote. “Each School has developed contingency plans and will be in touch with more specific information as spring term approaches.
Photograph by Allison Kern
As the coronavirus pandemic threatens public health and overwhelms hospitals around the country, University leaders sent a “sobering” note to the community today, noting that although “some of our Schools have announced that they intend to welcome back increased numbers of students to campus for spring semester” (notably the College, as many as 3,100 of about 6,600 undergraduates up from about half that many in the fall term), such plans “depend on the status of the pandemic and may need to change if the situation continues to deteriorate.”
As an indication of just how much conditions have deteriorated, President Lawrence S. Bacow, Provost Alan M. Garber, and others observed, “Last Thursday, more than 7,000 new infections were reported in the Commonwealth nearly twenty-five times the number we saw when the fall semester was getting under way; some two-thirds of cities and towns are now considered high risk for transmission, and more contagio