(Excerpts  from Inside Higher Ed)

• For the more than 500 American colleges that plan to require COVID-19 vaccines for students coming to campus this fall, a major challenge will be implementing this requirement for international students who might not have access to one of the three vaccines currently authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use in the U.S.
• Some of those students may have access to a different vaccine authorized by a different national regulator in their home country, or they might not have access to a COVID-19 vaccine at all.
• For the purposes of its COVID-19 vaccine requirement, American is accepting any COVID-19 vaccine authorized for emergency use by either the FDA -- the Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson vaccines -- or any vaccine listed for emergency use by the World Health Organization, a list that includes the AstraZeneca vaccine and the Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines, both of which are made in China, among others.
• Gerri Taylor, co-chair of the American College Health Association’s COVID-19 task force, said colleges already have a track record of accepting international versions of vaccines for more long-standing vaccine requirements, such as those for preventing meningitis, measles, mumps and rubella.
• “Each college has to make their own decision, and the WHO is a good standard, as is the CDC,” said Taylor. “If we follow what they’re recommending, I think schools will be in good shape.”
• Many colleges have plans in place to help students who are unable to be vaccinated with WHO- or FDA-approved vaccines prior to coming to campus get vaccinated after arrival.
• But that raises the question of what special precautions students might need to take in the weeks until they are fully vaccinated: according to the CDC, a person is considered fully vaccinated two weeks after a single-dose Johnson & Jonson vaccine or two weeks after a second dose of the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine. Taylor, of the American College Health Association, said colleges with COVID vaccination requirements are struggling with how to house students who arrive on campus without being fully vaccinated for whatever reason.