Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Newsletter
Dear friends and alumni,
As we approach the second year since the COVID-19 virus was first identified in the U.S., several states have recently rolled back precautions, including mask mandates and capacity limits. As CDC Director and Harvard Chan alumna Dr. Rochelle Walensky recently wrote, “I do think that the next month or two is really pivotal in terms of how this pandemic goes. As we scale up vaccination, we really do need to decrease the amount of virus that is circulating.”
Much as states and counties differ on their approach to public health measures at this stage of the pandemic, they also vary widely in their ability to get shots into the arms of citizens.
The World Health Organization listed vaccine hesitancy as one of the top ten threats to global health, even prior to the pandemic. In a recent paper from the Human Immunomics Initiative (HII), Pregistry, and the COVID Collaborative, the U.S. had one of the lowest vaccination acceptance rates among 16 countries surveyed, ahead of only Russia and Australia. In that same survey, just 52 percent of pregnant women overall indicated an intention to receive the vaccine, compared to 73 percent of non-pregnant women, making clear that vaccine hesitancy during pregnancy is a global concern, brought about by conflicting messages and a lack of available, reliable data. In a recent op-ed, Dean Michelle Williams and Julia Wu, Principal Investigator at HII and senior author of the paper, wrote “We urgently need to do better for pregnant women for the duration of the pandemic—and to reform our vaccine research and development practices to serve them better going forward.”
As we look to chart a better path forward, Joseph Allen, associate professor of exposure assessment science and Director of the Healthy Buildings Program, advocates for the return to offices and schools. He says the key to a safe return is a multi-faceted approach that includes bringing people back in phases, having better ventilation, and continuing wearing masks. “It’s a layered defense approach. No one strategy in and of itself is sufficient. But if you layer enough of these on top of each other, you can significantly reduce risk…My hope is that we’ll learn lessons and use this as an opportunity to really re-evaluate how we design, operate and maintain these buildings where we spend all of our time. We take them for granted, but they’re having a massive impact on our health.”
Whether you are working or learning remotely or in person, I hope you are staying well. As always, please feel free to share this email and remember to sign up for the School’s COVID-19 Update email for additional news and resources each week.
Kristen Rozansky
Vice Dean for External Relations