Can US employers order workers to be vaccinated against the coronavirus? | World News

The first Covid-19 vaccine is now in the arms of Americans, and we see the end of a pandemic that killed 300,000 people in the United States and devastated most of the economy. But returning to “normal” is a tremendous task, and employers are now suffering from major problems: can they order workers to be vaccinated?

Vaccinations across the country, especially as large as the United States, will always be a large business. But it’s not just logistics that is causing problems. Many Americans are totally hesitant to get vaccinated.

Pew Research Center Voting Sixty percent of Americans released on December 3 say they will undoubtedly or probably get the vaccine if it becomes available soon. It’s a remarkable rise since the same question was raised in September.That figure is well below public health professionals with immunization rates of 75% to 80%. Say Countries need to meet for herd immunity to come into effect.

Vaccines will only be available to the majority of Americans by the summer of 2021 at the earliest, but the question is whether companies, including hospitals and long-term care facilities, should require employees to vaccinate to ensure things. A few months may be a serious debate and will return to normal as soon as possible.

Employers, especially in areas that have been radically changed by the pandemic, have shown a desire to vaccinate their workers. The National Restaurant Association and other food and agricultural organizations letter We urged Donald Trump and Joe Biden to prioritize vaccination of food workers “to ensure that the agricultural and food supply chains continue to function.”

Randy Weingerten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, one of the country’s largest teachers’ unions, also said the union is supporting schools that require teachers to be vaccinated. Being in school during normal times, just as you need to be vaccinated.

“We want to go back to the school building. Location is important when it comes to education,” she said. Axios..

And in the private sector, other bosses want all staff to be vaccinated. Daniel Schreiber, CEO of Lemonade Insurance Company, I have written On the company’s website, he states that he is trying to get a 100% vaccination rate at the company. The company said it would not give vaccinations, but he wrote: “Corporate directives, coupled with educational sessions, can inject the urgency and security needed to move the needle.”

Employers usually have the right to require employees to be vaccinated. Employment in the United States is usually voluntary. This means that an employer can dismiss an employee for any reason, as long as the employee’s protected identity, such as race or religion, does not need to be addressed. With the exception of some religious and health-related exemptions, private companies have specific rights to maintain their own health and safety standards and employees who violate the rules, including those who have not been vaccinated. Members can be legally dismissed.

Mandatory vaccines in the United States are not unheard of. Hospitals have long obliged employees to get the flu vaccine because healthcare professionals can infect high-risk patients with the flu virus even if they are asymptomatic. According to the law, 15 states have legislation requiring healthcare professionals to vaccinate in certain situations with the aim of keeping high-risk patients safe. Johns Hopkins Medicine..Every state has Mandatory Vaccines for children to enter school as a way to achieve herd immunity against diseases such as polio and measles.

Complicating the requirements for the Covid-19 vaccine is that the vaccine is approved for emergency use. That is, the vaccine is still considered .The situation is different when and when the vaccine gets full regulatory approval – Pfizer Presentation We plan to apply for full approval in April 2021, but it is unknown when vaccination will be fully approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). For now, the employer’s right to mandate the Covid-19 vaccine lies in the legal gray zone for an indefinite future.

Acts that enable emergency use authorization To tell Dritt Rice, a law professor at the Hastings College of Law at the University of California, said there must be “appropriate conditions” for individuals receiving the product to reject the product. However, the law also suggests that Secretary of Health and Welfare Alex Azar has the ability to tolerate the consequences of refusing the vaccine.

“Some employers expect to be willing to delegate, as the wording of the law is unclear and does not specify a ban on delegation. [the vaccine], And it is challenged in court. It is unclear at this time whether the court will approve the mandate, “Reese said.

Many hospitals, the first workplaces to receive the Covid-19 vaccine, do not require employees to be vaccinated because they are approved for emergency use. The American Medical Epidemiology Association (SHEA) Widely supported Requesting approved vaccinations from healthcare professionals, teachers and students is stated in the Covid-19 vaccination. Policy recommendations Covid vaccines should not be mandatory for healthcare professionals while the vaccine is urgently approved, but once the vaccine is fully approved, healthcare providers can consider the requirements.

Dr. Tom Talbot, chief hospital epidemiologist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and a member of SHEA, said he was worried that the vaccine obligation could backfire.

“At a time when building trust and conversation is really important, we run the risk of instilling distrust in the vaccine,” said Talbot. “If we do it too early, it can really foster the division of vaccine repellent and can cause long-term harm.”

Talbot says his hospital has a strategy of sharing information about vaccines and having experts discuss vaccines one-on-one with employees so that people are happy with the idea of ​​getting vaccinated. Said.

“The feedback we got was really grateful and eased the anxiety about what our people heard, saw and worried about,” he said.

Talbot said that if healthcare professionals are happy with the idea of ​​vaccination, they can advocate a vaccine for their patients.

“Healthcare professionals are the gatekeepers of patients. If we can make them comfortable and vaccinated, they will be advocates for patients and have conversations with them.”