Aug 16, 2021 Source: The Buffalo News
Unsplash, Volodymyr Hryschchenko
Hospitals and long-term care facilities in New York State must require all employees to be vaccinated, according to a mandate from Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced Monday.
Nursing homes and adult care facilities are considered long-term care facilities and must also require employees to vaccinate. Employees must receive their first dose by Sept. 27, the governor said.
New Covid caes are up 1,000% in the state over the past six weeks, and 80% of them have been linked to the Delta variant, Cuomo said. In Western New York, more than 131,000 people have contracted Covid-19 since March 2020 and 2,531 have died of it.
"We must act now to stop the spread," Cuomo said in a statement. "Our healthcare heroes led the battle against the virus, and now we need them to lead the battle between the variant and the vaccine."
The New York State Department of Health will issue orders to health care facilities requiring them to develop employee vaccination policies. Health care facilities are allowed to offer limited exemptions for staff with religious or medical reasons.
Cuomo, who is expected to resign next week, has "strongly urged" private businesses to adopt similar policies, and has encouraged school districts to require vaccinations for teachers. He hinted that similar mandates may be in store for businesses and school districts as well.
"Neither will occur without the state legally mandating the actions – private businesses will not enforce a vaccine mandate unless it's the law, and local school districts will be hesitant to make these challenging decisions without legal direction," he said in the release.
The five-county region – Erie, Niagara, Chautauqua, Cattaraugus and Allegany counties – had reported declining case counts, hospitalizations and deaths since its second-wave peak in January, as vaccinations ramp up across the region and more people acquire immunity. Cases and hospitalizations rose in early spring, peaked in mid-April and declined sharply before beginning an uptick in July.
Hospice Buffalo last week launched its own vaccine mandate in two phases, with unvaccinated staff needing to be tested for Covid-19 twice a week starting immediately. A second phase, requiring all employees to be vaccinated, will take effect once the U.S. Food and
Drug Administration gives full approval to the Covid-19 vaccine. The only exceptions to that requirement will be if an employee obtains an approved medical or religious exemption. Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center last week said it would mandate in three to four weeks that its employees be vaccinated against Covid-19, or else be subjected to regular testing.
Have you take the COVID 19 vaccine? Which one? Where you require to take the COVID 19 vaccine? By who? Why?
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