Tag: covid vaccine

Bill of Health - women holds carboard protest sign reading "no to vaccine passports," vaccine passports legality

Vaccine Requirements, Passports, and the “New Normal”

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Bailey Kennedy, J.D.

As vaccination programs slowly ramp up across the United States, a burgeoning idea has slowly gained more traction: immunity “passports” as a way to separate the vaccinated from the unvaccinated, the immune from the vulnerable. The concept is simple enough: once a person is fully vaccinated, they would be given some sort of physical or digital proof of their vaccine status. Businesses, workplaces, schools, and other public spaces could then require a vaccine passport for entry. The upside is clear to those who are vaccinated. Those lucky enough to get a shot due to the vaccine prioritization scheme (or those with the wealth and influence to skip waiting in line) will be able to go about their normal activities, while those closer to the bottom of the list will continue taking 2020-style precautions.

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Vials of medications with syringe and needle.

Vaccines are here, but not for everyone

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Bailey Kennedy, J.D.

The race to vaccinate the world against COVID-19 is on. Though Americans may be lamenting that they have to wait a few more weeks to get their dose, the delay may be much longer for most people around the world. Even before approval, three vaccines — AstraZeneca, Moderna, and Pfizer — had been gobbled up by wealthy governments across the globe. In November, about half of the doses of these vaccines had been spoken for by the EU, Canada, U.S., U.K., Australia, and Japan. Meanwhile, COVAX, an international coalition with plans to secure vaccines for developing countries that lack the resources to develop a vaccine of their own, has only secured legally binding agreements for 200 million vaccine doses. Over the course of the next year, 67 low-income countries may be able to vaccinate only about 10% of their populations — a level well below the amount required to ensure herd immunity.

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Los Angeles, California / USA - May 1, 2020: People in front of Los Angeles’ City Hall protest the state’s COVID-19 stay at home orders in a “Fully Open California” protest.

5 Questions About COVID-19 and Religious Exemptions

Chloe Reichel Leave a comment

By Chloe Reichel

On February 26th, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a shadow docket decision that could foretell sweeping limitations for public health measures, both within and outside the COVID-19 pandemic context.

The Court’s ruling in the case, Gateway City Church v. Newsom, blocked a county-level ban on church services, despite the fact that the ban applied across the board to all indoor gatherings. This religious exceptionalism is emerging as a key trend in recent Supreme Court decisions, particularly those related to COVID-19 restrictions.

To better understand what these rulings might mean for public health, free exercise of religion, the future of the COVID-19 pandemic, and potential vaccine mandates, I spoke with Professor Elizabeth Sepper, an expert in religious liberty, health law, and equality at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law.

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Empty classroom.

Can Colleges and Universities Require Student COVID-19 Vaccination?

I. Glenn Cohen Leave a comment

This post originally appeared on the Harvard Law Review Blog.

By I. Glenn Cohen and Dorit Rubinstein Reiss

In the last year, colleges and universities across the U.S. struggled with how to operate during the COVID-19 pandemic. The most recent data, from January 2021, shows a mix of online and in-person modes of instruction.

Pie chart of modes of instruction for higher education institutions during the pandemic.

At the same time, a study of the experience in early fall 2020 found an association between colleges and universities with in-person instruction and increased infection incidence in the counties within which the schools were located. With vaccine authorization in the U.S. and the promise of potential availability for student populations in late spring and summer 2021 (in most states’ allocation plans these students are among the last groups in prioritization), there is increasing interest by higher education institutions in moving more of their fall 2021 educational instruction and non-instructional activities to in-person modes. Vaccinating students is a key step to safely reopening campuses, in whole or in part, in a way that is safe for students, faculty, staff, and local communities. At the same time, university leaders are likely reasonably concerned about the legality of mandating COVID-19 vaccines. Not all students, faculty or staff may appreciate such a requirement, and anti-vaccine groups are more than ready to assist in litigation — as, for example, they did when the University of California required influenza vaccines for on-campus attendance (a preliminary injunction in that case was denied). In this essay, we discuss whether universities can legally require vaccination as a condition of attendance and with what accommodations.

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Vial and syringe.

4 Things to Know About Intellectual Property, Patent Pledges, and COVID-19 Vaccines

Chloe Reichel Leave a comment

By Chloe Reichel

High-profile commentators have argued recently that vaccine scarcity needn’t exist. If vaccine manufacturers simply shared their patents with other pharmaceutical companies, supply would quickly ramp up. 

Others have pointed out that numerous bottlenecks exist in the manufacturing process, from the glass vials that hold the vaccine, to the lipids that encase the vaccine’s active ingredient, mRNA.

And even if these bottlenecks didn’t exist, the intellectual property argument may be a straw man.    

In fact, this past October, Moderna made a gesture toward opening access to its intellectual property, by pledging that it would not enforce its patents against “those making vaccines intended to combat the pandemic.” That month, Jorge L. Contreras, a Presidential Scholar and Professor of Law at the University of Utah, covered the patent pledge and its potential implications for Bill of Health.

We checked in with Contreras to ask about the implications of Moderna’s patent pledge now that its vaccine has been proven safe and effective. Here are the highlights from the conversation:

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Patient receives Covid-19 vaccine.

Can Employers Mandate a Vaccine Under Emergency Use Authorization?

Dorit Reiss 204 Comments

By Dorit Rubinstein Reiss

Several months ago, I wrote a post asking whether employers can mandate the uptake of a vaccine under an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA). My view then was that there was substantial legal uncertainty, but that the balance indicated that at the least, they may be possible, at the discretion of the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Much of that discussion is still relevant, but developments and new points brought to my attention since have changed my view.

At this point, while there is still legal uncertainty, my view is that the balance of factors supports the ability of employers (or states) to require EUA vaccines. Courts vary, but my current assessment is that most courts would be inclined to uphold an employer mandate for an EUA COVID-19 vaccine.

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Person receiving vaccine.

Complex Regulations Push Employers Toward Voluntary Vaccination Programs, Not Mandates

Lauren Breslow Leave a comment

By Lauren Hammer Breslow, JD, MPH

As COVID-19 vaccines become increasingly available, employers have been thrust into the spotlight on the public health question of whether or not to mandate vaccination for employees.

Despite strong evidence that mandatory vaccines best serve public health, a rubric of laws making mandatory programs complicated to deploy is leading many employers to favor vaccine encouragement policies.

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Bill of Health - man in suit takes money from wealthy person while giving them a vaccine, vaccine for money, wealthy people vaccine

Wait Your Turn: How the Government Can Prevent Individuals from Using Wealth to Cut the Vaccine Line

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Kareem Caryll

Since the Food & Drug Administration granted emergency use authorization for the COVID-19 vaccines produced by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna in December 2020, there have been many debates on vaccine allocation and prioritization. As noted by Harvard Law School Professor Glenn Cohen in a recent interview with Annie Kapnick for the COVID-19 and The Law series, the issue of vaccine distribution is “complicated” because of competing factors decision-makers must consider. The relative weights placed on these factors has led to very different prioritization schemes. Initially, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended a hybrid plan that appeared to prioritize individuals who were most likely to contract the virus (e.g., first responders, grocery store workers) over individuals most vulnerable to severe symptoms or death from the virus if contracted (e.g., individuals over the age of 65 not in long-term care facilities).[1]  In the United Kingdom, the prioritization groups were primarily based on vulnerability.  Similarly, when looking more narrowly at the various plans being implemented at the state level in the United States, there are high degrees of variation.

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COVID-19 fake news concept illustration.

COVID-19 Vaccine Misinformation and the Anti-Vaccine Movement

Dorit Reiss 18 Comments

By Dorit Rubinstein Reiss

The anti-vaccine movement is aggressively working to promote misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines, up to and including promoting fake claims of deaths from vaccines. We need to be aware of its efforts, and be prepared to respond.

It’s worth emphasizing that this blog post is focused on the anti-vaccine movement, not people with concerns about vaccines (the “vaccine hesitant”).

In relation to COVID-19, anti-vaccine activists have aggressively promoted misinformation from the start of the pandemic.

In March 2020, anti-vaccine activists incorrectly alleged – by misrepresenting a study – that flu vaccines increase COVID-19 risks. In June, anti-vaccine activist Del Bigtree described COVID-19 as a “cold,” blamed those who died for their own deaths, and called on his followers to “catch that cold.”

And from the beginning, anti-vaccine activists were committed to the ideas that COVID-19 vaccines would not work, would be dangerous, and would be promoted by a nefarious global conspiracy. They continue to spread these allegations, for example, using the fact that there are liability protections for COVID-19 vaccines to imply the vaccines are dangerous. Liability protections for COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers are real; but they are not evidence that the vaccines are unsafe.

This post will focus on one type of misinformation: alleged deaths from COVID-19 vaccines.

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