WASHINGTON (AP) — The Department of Veterans Affairs on Monday became the first major federal agency to require health care workers to get COVID-19 vaccines, as the aggressive delta variant spreads across the nation and some communities report troubling increases in hospitalizations among unvaccinated people.
The VA’s move came on a day when nearly 60 leading medical and health care organizations issued a call for health care facilities to require their workers to get vaccinated. No federal law stands in the way of employers requiring vaccinations, but like mask mandates, the issue has been politicized in a society that’s divided on matters of public health.
“With more than 300 million doses administered in the United States and nearly 4 billion doses administered worldwide, we know the vaccines are safe and highly effective at preventing severe illness and death from COVID-19,” Dr. Susan Bailey, immediate past president of the American Medical Association, said in a statement. “Increased vaccinations among health care personnel will not only reduce the spread of COVID-19 but also reduce the harmful toll this virus is taking within the health care workforce and those we are striving to serve.”
Although vaccination among physicians is nearly universal — 96% according to an AMA survey — that’s not the case for many other people working at health care facilities. In nursing homes, only about 60% of staffers are vaccinated, compared with about 80% of residents, according to recent numbers from Medicare. And COVID-19 cases are rising.
At the VA, vaccines will now be mandatory for certain medical personnel — including physicians, dentists, podiatrists, optometrists, registered nurses, physician assistants and others who work in departmental facilities or provide direct care to veterans, said VA Secretary Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough.
Employees will have eight weeks to be fully vaccinated.
“It’s the best way to keep veterans safe, especially as the delta variant spreads across the country,” McDonough said in a statement. “Whenever a veteran or VA employee sets foot in a VA facility, they deserve to know that we have done everything in our power to protect them from COVID-19.
“With this mandate, we can once again make — and keep — that fundamental promise,” he added.
It was unclear what would happen to VA employees who refuse to be vaccinated. The longstanding policy in the health care industry is for staff to stay up-to-date with vaccinations, such as annual flu shots. However, exceptions can be allowed for medical reasons, such as known allergies.
In addition to the AMA, the medical and health care groups calling for mandatory vaccines for health workers included the American Academy of Nursing, the American Public Health Association, the American Pharmacists Association and, for the first time, a nursing home industry group. LeadingAge, which represents nonprofit nursing homes and elder care facilities, had previously advocated educating nursing home employees about the benefits of getting their shots. Also joining the call was the National Medical Association, the leading professional group representing Black physicians.
“Unfortunately, many health care and long-term care personnel remain unvaccinated,” the groups said in a statement. “We stand with the growing number of experts and institutions that support the requirement for universal vaccination of health workers.”
Earlier this year, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said current federal laws do not prevent an employer from requiring employees physically entering the workplace to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has heavily promoted vaccinations as a way to slow the pandemic and save lives. However, the agency has not recommended that state or local officials, or employers, mandate vaccinations for their employees.
“The politics is really tricky because President Biden hasn’t ordered mandatory vaccinations for federal workers,” said Lawrence Gostin, a public health law expert at Georgetown University. “And it would seem hypocritical if CDC made that recommendation” to businesses or state and local officials, he said.
To make matters more complicated, the COVID-19 vaccines have yet to win full approval from the Food and Drug Administration. They continue to be provided under emergency use authorization and the lack of a full approval has fed into hesitancy among some people.
Still, the FDA’s emergency approval process was thorough and didn’t skip the extensive testing required of any vaccine. Of the three manufacturers of vaccines approved in the U.S., Pfizer and Moderna have applied for full approval, and a Pfizer decision is expected soon.
The COVID-19 vaccines were not brewed overnight, either. They were the fruit of more than 10 years of behind-the-scenes research and huge injections of funding that laid the groundwork for them to be rolled out so quickly.
Katie Smith Sloan, CEO of LeadingAge, said it’s time to go beyond the power of persuasion. “As COVID-19 variants emerge and proliferate, we can start saving more lives today by ensuring staff are fully vaccinated,” she said.
___
AP Health Writer Mike Stobbe in New York contributed.
© 2021 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
—-
This content is published through a licensing agreement with Acquire Media using its NewsEdge technology.
How mandatory is the annual flu vaccine?
When I served in the Navy, Flu vaccines were not mandatory.
But if you didn’t get vaccinated and caught the flu, then you could be disciplined.
When I was a child, one got vaccinated for the polio and mumps or you didn’t go to school.
We in the U.S. don’t have polio, mumps or chicken pox anymore, because of the vaccinated.
But now the self-righteous millennials think they are gods and are above being vaccinated.
Wow! That’s a lot of government control over what goes into your body.
It seems to me that parents with the advice of their doctor should choose what is injected into their child. My children were vaccinated with the common vaccines of that time but not because the government told us to do so.
It is true that vaccinations of well tested, tried and true, vaccines can prevent disease when the great majority of a nation get the vaccinations but that’s not really what the Covid vaccine is. We see the numbers daily of breakthrough cases. Maybe we won’t get as sick but we are not protected from getting the disease.
But now the self-righteous millennials think they are gods and are above being vaccinated.
That’s the statement that really blows me away. IMO millennials have the right to choose. They can certainly choose abortion, why not vaccine? If this vaccine is everything Joe Biden says it is you won’t be affected because of unvaccinated millennials. Oh, wait. So, maybe it isn’t what Joe Biden says it is and maybe that’s why those millennials are a little skeptical.
I don’t recommend that anyone either get the vaccine or not get the vaccine and that is what I have said to people who have discussed it with me. Everyone’s circumstances are different and they should examine what is known, consider what is not known, factor in their age and health and make an individual decision based on what is best for them.
I see your point, Scruffy—I had to take the childhood vaccines, too—and I understand the importance thaat those played back then. This COVID thing is a political power play working under the cloak of a health crisis. There is a 98-99% recovery rate for this thing barring any pre-existing conditions. The vaccines were rushed in development and there are cases of deaths resulting from taking them. I see a totally different set of circumstances here and my decision for me is not to take it—and I respect your decision to do what you think is right for you. Take care and no hard feelings.
Orwellian thought processes. Read 1984. Look at how China and Russia became the biggest socialistic countries in the world. Now we are becoming that way.
Tell a lie long enough and everyone will believe.
Vaccines didn’t end polio.
I don’t know how else to say this, but you and everyone else that thinks that polio was a) caused by a virus that was in less than half of those diagnosed with polio or b) “ended” by a vaccine that was so maligned that Sabin had to do all of his testing in soviet Russia, while he was accusing Salk of scientific fraud, then I almost feel sorry for you.
The problem here is that vaccine science has been flawed since Jenner falsified his Small Pox inoculation, which he flat out lied and said it would give “life long immunity” to small pox. He knew it didn’t. Koch even doubted his tuberculosis vaccine, and even Pasteur on his death bed doubted his own “germ” theory. So, to say that only “spoiled millenials” are pushing back against this is utter ignorance. It’s educated and intelligent adults who are.
Scruffy, when i was in (92-2012), it WAS mandatory to take the annual flu shot.. YOU HAD NO choice in the matter..
AND imo there is a BIG DIFFERENCE between the active duty troops and the CIVILIANS IN THE VA..
This is just the tip of the ice berg. They will continue to mandate the experimental injection where they can and continue to ramp up the discrimination against those who choose to exercise their right not to have it.
If you want a peek into where this is going, look no further than France, Italy, or Austrailia where the “unvaccinated” can no longer go out to public places like restaurants, cinemas, museums, etc… sparking people to take to the streets in protests some of which are turning violent ( and none of which will you see on the news).
Just like what we now have in America these are Marxist regimes who have used Covid to grant themselves unlimited power whch they are not likly to give up anytime soon.
Brace yourselves for the coming storm because unlike the protesters abroad, too many Americans have already shown a sheepish willingness and in the case of the left even support of policies and mandates which violate our laws, our constitution and which continue to strip us of our God given rights and freedoms.
I find it almost comical that they let the protesters , looters and arsonists grouped together and they never complained about them being unmasked.
Oh , that was their rights. B S
I wonder, how swiftly we will start seeing MASS RESIGNATIONS at the VA?
The workers should ban together and file suite, mandatory vaccines goes against the Constitution.
They also go against INTERNATIONAL LAW, that the US Signed up to.. RE you cannot MANDATE an experimental vaccine..
Since there is research to prove transmission by the vaccinated but not by people who have immunity from contracting Covid-19, this is a perfect way to infect all vets who use the vets hospital. https://jhsphcenterforhealthsecurity.s3.amazonaws.com/181009-gcbr-tech-report.pdf ref by Dr Ariyana Love
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Public School of Health Center for Health Security
p 45 What Iis The Technology? Self-spreading vaccines—also known as transmissible or self-propagating vaccines—are genetically engineered to move through populations in the same way as communicable diseases… This article proposes that it is for the purpose of protection, but there is no Covid vaccine. There is no pathagen as required for denoting a vaccine. What is in the injection has nothing to do with protection. It is a bioweapon.
Look into Dr Michael Yeaden, former VP and chief science officer for Pfizer https://cairnsnews.org/2021/07/06/a-final-warning-to-humanity-from-former-pfizer-chief-scientist-michael-yeadon/
I am not against vaccines but this is still in trial on the whole population regardless of what government officials think they can mandate. When I got the chicken pox, measles and mumps I did not need a vaccine to enter school. The same has been shown here, though the information is being obliterated in MSM. Those that have had Covid and survived should not be forced to take a vaccine unless there is some proof that they need it. Which the only proof I have seen is it works better if you have had the vaccine. Is this leading to something like they know it was genetically mutated by man and the vaccine can prevent the current mutation of the virus. The VA should not force nor should any company unless they have data on those already infected, those that got infected that were vaccinated and other data, then share to us the population to make the decision.
I want an unbiased determination of the vaccines efficacy.
You won’t find it.
As I said above, in the 1950s, Salk and Sabin HATED each other and accused both of lying and fraud. I mean, Saben distributed his vaccine in the USSR first, and how do we know that the Soviets didn’t falsify the data so they could create an easy chemical weapon against the west?
We know, or at least, some of us know, that Salk’s and Saben’s vaccines were BOTH contaminated by a “vacuolating agent”, that was isolated and called “SV40” and found by Bernice Eddy to cause cancer in every test animal except the rhesus monkey, where it originated. This was buried just like the Cutter incident. Just like the Scarlet Fever vaccine that killed every test subject, which were all nurses. Just like now, where the COVID shots have killed over 45,000+ people and caused upwards to 3 million adverse events, and that is being covered up too.
You won’t find any unbiased info on vaccines, because “they” need vaccines to push their agenda of totalitarian rule over everyone and every thing. Sidney, Australia is going into “indefinite” lockdown due to a handful of people catching a “varient” of a virus that no one even isolated yet. FYI, 900 people in Australia, TOTAL, have died from “COVID”, 700 were on their death bed, and the entire country has been buried in a prison-state. Does that even make sense?
Not just no. BUT HELL NO..
“MY body, MY choice”. The liberals justification for heroin use, prostitution, and abortion. It’s a selective mantra. . . .
WHEN has their mantra, NOT BEEN selective!?
Earlier this year, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said current federal laws do not prevent an employer from requiring employees physically entering the workplace to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
This statement is incorrect. 21 CFR 312.7 SPECIFICALLY states, “experimental vaccines CANNOT be called safe and effective”. Forcing, coercing, advertising is a violation of the CFR. Not to mention the Nuremberg Code of Ethics. This is wrong in so many ways.
AHH, but like the CDC/FBI/DOJ ETC, what are rules, when THEY MAKE THEM UP as they go along…
This is entirely Illegal I would sue, Hippa laws protect against this
We certainly need to see MASSIVE CLASS ACTION LAWSUITS against EVery place, doing this…
I’m pretty sure it is simply a matter of time that someone who is forced to take the jab or lose their job will get seriously sick or die. Then they, or their family, will sue the employer for forcing them to do so. Since the manufacturers can’t be sued someone will be.
That ought to put the fear of God i to those employers forcing it on their employees.
In a “free country” nobody can mandate that you do something. That would be slavery. You can be punished for actual injury or damage to a person or their property, or for violating a contract that you agreed to. That’s pretty much it. It’s been a long time since we had a “free country”…
With all of the “apparent”, and actual damage Soros and his money have done to this country, it makes one wonder why, and how, is this former Nazi accolade still afforded the protection of US law based on his current and past activities. Or, in other words, how is he still alive and free!!!