Miss Zomboko
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- May 18, 2014
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California will require all of its roughly 2.2 million health care workers and long term care workers to be fully vaccinated by Sept. 30 as the nation’s most populous state is losing ground in the battle against new infections of a more dangerous coronavirus variant.
The order, issued Thursday by the California Department of Public Health, is different than what Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom said last month when he announced health care workers would have the choice of either getting vaccinated or submitting to weekly testing.
Now, the order does not give health care workers a choice. It says all must be fully vaccinated by the end of September, with exceptions for people who decline the vaccine because of a religious belief or workers who cannot be inoculated because of a qualifying medical reason backed up by a note signed by a licensed medical professional.
The change comes as California is seeing the fastest increase in new virus cases since the start of the pandemic, averaging 18.3 new cases per 100,000 people a day. Most of the state’s new infections are caused by the delta variant, a more contagious version of the coronavirus that the state says “may cause more severe illness.”
“Increasing numbers of health care workers are among the new positive cases, despite vaccinations being prioritized for this group when vaccines initially became available,” said Dr. Tomás J. Aragón, California’s public health officer. “Recent outbreaks in health care settings have frequently been traced to unvaccinated staff members.”
Gabe Montoya, an EMT at Kaiser Downey Medical Center and a member of the executive committee of the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, said “vaccines are an essential tool in fighting this virus,” adding that “workers must have a voice at the bargaining table whenever new conditions are placed on our work.”
“We’ve put our lives on the line for the last year and a half doing this on a daily basis — at great cost to ourselves and to our families,” Montoya said.
The order, issued Thursday by the California Department of Public Health, is different than what Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom said last month when he announced health care workers would have the choice of either getting vaccinated or submitting to weekly testing.
Now, the order does not give health care workers a choice. It says all must be fully vaccinated by the end of September, with exceptions for people who decline the vaccine because of a religious belief or workers who cannot be inoculated because of a qualifying medical reason backed up by a note signed by a licensed medical professional.
The change comes as California is seeing the fastest increase in new virus cases since the start of the pandemic, averaging 18.3 new cases per 100,000 people a day. Most of the state’s new infections are caused by the delta variant, a more contagious version of the coronavirus that the state says “may cause more severe illness.”
“Increasing numbers of health care workers are among the new positive cases, despite vaccinations being prioritized for this group when vaccines initially became available,” said Dr. Tomás J. Aragón, California’s public health officer. “Recent outbreaks in health care settings have frequently been traced to unvaccinated staff members.”
Gabe Montoya, an EMT at Kaiser Downey Medical Center and a member of the executive committee of the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, said “vaccines are an essential tool in fighting this virus,” adding that “workers must have a voice at the bargaining table whenever new conditions are placed on our work.”
“We’ve put our lives on the line for the last year and a half doing this on a daily basis — at great cost to ourselves and to our families,” Montoya said.
