A growing number of health care systems and other companies, including Amtrak and General Electric, are temporarily suspending orders that require employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
The move follows court rulings in recent weeks that blocked such requirements from the Biden administration for health care workers and federal contractors. Nevertheless, the decision about the need for vaccination remained up to individual employers.
The mandate suspension comes at an uncertain time: Many employers face labor shortages while Covid cases continue to rise and the highly mutated Omron variant is spreading.
It has become difficult to arrange adequate staffing in hospitals, which were already grappling with shortage of nurses and other staff before the pandemic. burn out The shortage has worsened.
It is likely in the choice of some health care systems to reverse vaccine mandates, according to David Barron, a Houston-based employment attorney.
“Most employers don’t have the luxury of losing 5 percent, or 10 percent, or whatever percentage of their employees don’t want to be vaccinated,” said Barron, who works with the Cozen O’Connor law firm. “In this environment, it’s very hard, especially in jobs like health care or other industries where it’s a very tight labor market.”
The Cleveland Clinic, which has 19 hospitals, was one of the health care systems that announced earlier this month that it would halt its vaccine policy. About 85 percent of Cleveland Clinic staff have been vaccinated, a spokesperson told NBC News, and periodic testing has been implemented for those who haven’t. The Cleveland Clinic said in a statement that it continues to “strongly encourage” all staff to receive the vaccine.
HCA Healthcare Inc., which has 183 hospitals in 20 states, made the same decision, although it also urged vaccination among employees, calling it a “significant step”.
Amtrak announced Tuesday that it is temporarily suspending its employee mandate following nationwide injunction last week against a requirement for federal contractors. general Electric Did the same thing last week.
Rail Service said the reversal would enable Amtrak to run normally next month, rather than cut service as it anticipated.
According to Amtrak CEO Bill Flynn, just 500 active employees have not been vaccinated.
“Today, 95.7% of our employees are either fully vaccinated or have accommodations,” he wrote in an employee memo. “When we include employees who reported receiving at least one vaccine dose, that number jumps to 97.3%.”
He said testing would be offered to those with housing or those without vaccinations, while the mandate is not in effect.
‘It is absurd to take back what we know is safe and effective’
Dr. Sadia Khan, an assistant professor of medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, criticized corporations for easing their vaccine orders — especially as Covid cases rise across the country.
“Putting back what we know is safe and effective is absurd,” she said.
Khan said the Omicron pandemic adds more unknowns to the equation, but even if there is no new version, this time of year should make the mandate more urgent.
“Variants are no more of a concern than a change in weather,” she said. “As we move into colder times, this means more people who are gathering indoors, and for most of the winter we anticipate there will be an increase. How big this surge is depends entirely on how many people have been vaccinated and/or amplified.”
“What we can end up with is a patchwork — red state, blue state — where some states, some cities have mandates, and then others don’t.”
Meanwhile, several other companies eligible for relief from the vaccine mandate as a result of court proceedings have nevertheless chosen to keep the rule.
Among them: Southwest Airlines, which told NBC News it is monitoring the lawsuits filed but still requires employees to be fully vaccinated by the company’s original deadline of Jan. Defense contractor Raytheon Technologies is also keeping its policy, The Wall Street Journal reported,
Going forward, Barron said, federal vaccine mandates can be blocked in court, but state or local mandates, such as New York CityYes, you can see success.
“What we can end up with is a patchwork — red state, blue state — where some states, some cities have mandates, and then others don’t — which is going to be a nightmare for large, multistate companies.” ,