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WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 27: U.S. President Joe Biden speaks to reporters after receiving a third dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine in the South Court Auditorium in the White House September 27, 2021 in Washington, DC. Last week President Biden announced that Americans 65 and older and frontline workers who received the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine over six months ago would be eligible for booster shots.
New York authorities have put into effect the new vaccine mandate on Monday at midnight that requires healthcare workers to get inoculated or risk losing their jobs amid a shortage of workers in the healthcare sector.
After the law was in effect, some hospital networks, including Northwell Health, have already reported firing more than two dozen healthcare workers. Other personnel will have 30 days to comply with the mandate and get the coronavirus vaccine before they are at risk of losing their careers.
Vaccine Mandate's Effect
Authorities say that about 16% of the state's hospital workers, equal to roughly 83,000 healthcare staff, are not fully vaccinated. They added that about 8% had not gotten even a single dose of the coronavirus vaccine, which put them at a much greater risk of termination from their jobs.
The president and CEO at New York-Presbyterian Hospitals, one of the largest systems in the United States, Steven Corwin, said that the mandate was needed to get everyone vaccinated against COVID-19. Prior to the legislation, 30% of his staff were unvaccinated, which dropped to 1% right after the deadline of the requirement, CBS News reported.
During an interview, Corwin said that out of 48,000 employees, only less than 220 had not gotten the coronavirus vaccine. On the other hand, at Erie County Medical Center in Buffalo, about 5% of their workers, which is about 400 people, were left unvaccinated and were currently on leave.
Tens of thousands of New York healthcare workers are believed to have refused a coronavirus vaccine shot before the mandate was put into effect. Resistance to the requirement has been expressed due to enforcing dismissals or unpaid leaves on employees that choose not to get inoculated. The situation has also worsened the existing shortage of healthcare workers in the country amid the coronavirus pandemic.
On top of the current requirement, United States President Joe Biden's administration discusses a new vaccine mandate that would apply to a much larger group of workers. The plans could potentially include anyone working at a firm with more than 100 employees, The Washington Post reported.
Increase of Vaccinated Healthcare Workers
Shortly before the mandate took effect, many New York healthcare workers scrambled to get vaccinated against the coronavirus in fear of losing their jobs. Despite the last-minute inoculations, many hospitals and nursing homes are still preparing for the sector's anticipated shortage of healthcare workers.
When the vaccine mandate went into full effect on Monday, 92% of New York's more than 650,000 hospital and nursing home staff had been at least partially vaccinated. The numbers represented a significant increase from last week when 82% of nursing home workers and 84% of hospital workers were partially vaccinated.
The surge of vaccinations before the mandate was recorded as one of the highest inoculation rates among healthcare workers across the United States. The numbers were also considered a positive sign that Biden's plan could help increase the vaccination rates across all regions in the country, the New York Times reported.
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