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Harvard University in Massachusetts
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Maddie Meyer / Getty Images
Do I get vaccinated or not?
At the elite University of Harvard, students hardly have a choice on this issue at the start of the new semester.
The US university introduces compulsory vaccination.
"In order to achieve the high vaccination rates required to protect our community, Harvard will prescribe the corona vaccination for all students who will be on campus this fall," said the college in Cambridge, Massachusetts .
Exceptions would therefore only be granted for medical or religious reasons.
A number of other US universities such as Yale, Columbia and Princeton had already introduced such compulsory vaccinations.
Before returning to campus, students must have completed their vaccination with a vaccine approved by the FDA or the World Health Organization.
This means that at least two weeks must have elapsed since the last dose of vaccine was administered, according to the university.
The university wants to offer international students and others who do not have access to it before autumn a vaccination when they arrive.
The university, founded in 1636 by British immigrants, is considered one of the elite forges in the USA.
More than 23,000 students are currently enrolled at the private university, which is known for its strict admission requirements.
Progress in the nationwide vaccination campaign had slowed recently.
Of the US population of around 330 million, more than 148.5 million have received at least one dose of vaccine to date.
107.3 million are considered fully vaccinated, according to figures from the CDC health authority.
In total, more than 32.5 million people in the USA have been infected with the Sars-CoV-2 pathogen, and almost 580,000 people have died.
Fok / dpa
