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Health workers in Contra Costa, Santa Clara and San Francisco counties have urged all employers to consider requiring employees to be vaccinated against the coronavirus on Thursday as cases rise rapidly. Officials said Thursday that nearly all of the cases and hospitalizations were in unvaccinated populations.
A state’s workplace safety committee learned last week that cases of the virus have increased in workplaces across the state, as the highly infectious delta variant continues to spread.
“Workers not vaccinated against COVID-19 pose a significant health and financial risk to the workplace,” Contra Costa County health officer Dr Chris Farnitano said in a statement. “Most importantly, workplace exposures have resulted in serious illness and death. “
Health officials said in a statement that employers can play a critical role in increasing immunization rates by requiring vaccines as a condition of employment, which the federal government said it could do with exceptions for them. health issues and religious beliefs.
“A universal vaccination policy can benefit companies because the quarantine requirements are different for vaccinated and unvaccinated workers,” San Francisco health officer Dr Susan Philip said in a statement. “Currently, an employee who is not vaccinated must self-quarantine for at least 10 days if exposed to a person who tests positive, while fully vaccinated workers do not need to self-quarantine unless they are ‘they are showing symptoms. “
San Francisco’s two largest employers, UCSF and the city and county, already require all employees to be vaccinated, said Dr. Naveena Bobba, deputy director of health at the SF Department of Public Health, when of a press conference on Thursday.
In May, Santa Clara County began requiring all employers there to determine the immunization status of every worker and contractor, a rule that was rescinded in June.
The State Department of Industrial Relations, which is responsible for ensuring workplace safety throughout California, did not immediately respond to questions about whether or not it was recommending workplace vaccines.
The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health’s Standards Board, or Cal / OSHA, last month relaxed workplace rules designed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
These updated rules allow employees to self-certify that they have been vaccinated, which health workers disputed on Thursday, saying it was best for employers to document that a person has been vaccinated.
In line with the state’s broader reopening plan, workplace rules also allow vaccinated people to reenter indoors without a mask, while unvaccinated people must still wear masks. Social distancing requirements have also been dropped, although employers must still have a virus prevention plan in place and provide testing if cases occur at work, among other requirements.
Local and state health officials can make recommendations for workplace safety, but it is up to the Cal / OSHA Standards Board to create enforceable rules that can result in citations and fines against an employer. This process is time consuming and has not always kept pace with the rapidly evolving coronavirus pandemic.
Farnitano told Thursday’s press conference that health workers have the power to issue warrants in response to outbreaks of infectious diseases like the coronavirus, but that he hopes employers will need vaccines without requirements.
Dr George Han, deputy health officer for Santa Clara County, told the conference that some employers in the county had asked for a recommendation to help put vaccine requirements in place.
Health workers said there was currently no threshold for the infections they were considering that would trigger a warrant.
A group of the Cal / OSHA board subcommittee heard at a meeting this week about the steps other states have taken to ease the restrictions, but also what steps they are considering to decide whether they must reinstate stricter rules in the workplace.
The full board hasn’t defined what that will be for California, but it will have one more chance to update the emergency rules it adopted in November and updated last month. .
Chase DiFeliciantonio is a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @ChaseDiFelice
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