New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced that a small percentage of healthcare workers have been fired or have resigned after refusing to get the Covid-19 vaccine ahead of the state’s mandate.
During a news briefing on Wednesday, Hochul revealed between 94 percent and 97 percent of staff at hospitals, nursing homes, adult care facilities and home health agencies have gotten at least one dose since she took office in late August.
However, not all workers have been inclined to get vaccinated, leading to some being let go or walking out.
‘We have numbers that show we are at a three percent total workforce reduction in these categories,’ Hochul said during the briefing.
‘It includes people who have been terminated, resignations, people who just decided to retire at the time, but also people who are on furlough who are waiting to see the outcome of the litigation.’
That means about 25,000 people are no longer health care workers in New York state.
The litigation Hochul spoke about is in reference to a federal judge ruling on Tuesday that New York must grant health care workers religious exemptions to the vaccine mandate, which the state is appealing.
New York’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for healthcare workers was split in two parts.
The first required the 450,000 employees at hospitals and 145,400 employees at nursing homes to get at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine by Monday, September 27.
The mandate was announced by then-Governor Andrew Cuomo in August, and was upheld by Hochul when she succeeded him.
It was one of the first – and one of the largest – such mandates to be announced in the U.S.
Data, shared by Hochul during the press briefing, appeared to show that the mandate was successful.
On August 24, when Hochul took office, 77 percent of hospital staff had been fully vaccinated.
By the time the mandate went into effect, 87 percent were fully vaccinated. As of today, 96 percent have had at least one dose.
Similar, 71 percent of nursing home staff members had received at least one dose on August 24. By September 27, that figure was raised to 92 percent.
Currently, 97 percent of employees have been given an initial dose of the vaccine.
‘When someone is sick and they go into an urgent care center, they go to a hospital, they are in need of help because they are in a vulnerable physical state,’ Hochul said at the briefing.
‘They need to know that the person taking care of them will not pass on this deadly virus to them or their family members – and that has been the whole objective behind this mandate.
‘It’s not something we wanted; it’s something this pandemic has forced us to do.’
The second part of the mandate looked at home health care workers at assisted living homes, hospice care, treatment centers, AIDS home care programs and more. (source: dailymail.com)
