Despite the order, less than half of LA city employees have been vaccinated

LOS ANGELES (KABC) – Although the city of Los Angeles has ordered its employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, only half have done so, according to new figures released this week.

The new data shows that about half of the city’s 57,000 employees have received at least one shot of the vaccine and less than half are fully immunized. More than 6,000 city employees are asking for religious or medical exemptions.

City council and Mayor Eric Garcetti last month approved an ordinance requiring all city employees to be vaccinated by October 19.

Here is how the largest departments are distributed:

Los Angeles Police Department: About half of the 12,315 employees in the department have been fully immunized.

Recreation and parks: Of 8,091 employees, 3,075 were fully vaccinated, or less than 40%.

Los Angeles Fire Department: About a third of the service’s 3,712 employees have been fully immunized.

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Department of Water and Energy: Out of 11,643 employees, only 3,501 were vaccinated, ie around 30%.

Mayor Eric Garcetti cautioned employees against requesting exemptions for invalid reasons, warning “We will not tolerate the abuse of these exemptions by those who simply do not want to be vaccinated.” you reconsider. “

The city now requires all city staff to be vaccinated against COVID-19, with some exemptions for medical reasons and religious beliefs. Requests for these exemptions were due on Monday of this week.

Those who request an exemption and are not fully vaccinated will need to undergo a weekly COVID-19 test if they regularly show up at a city job site.

About 23,000 employees did not respond to the city’s request for information on their status.

About 5,600 confirmed that they were not vaccinated.