Over One Third of Physicians Disagree with COVID Vaccine Mandate
While many physicians disagree with the COVID vaccine mandate, the federal government recently released a rule requiring vaccination by January 4th.
The Adaptive Medical Partners (AMP) conducted survey of over 1,000 physicians and clinicians from their network to gather insight regarding the impact of the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for healthcare workers.
A third of the surveyed respondents disagreed with vaccine mandates.
The federal government issued a vaccine mandate requiring vaccinations or consistent COVID-19 test of employees for all companies with 100 or more workers. Prior to the mandate, numerous health systems put their mandate in place, many of which require the vaccine.
Recently, CMS announced that all eligible health care workers at facilities participating in Medicare and Medicaid programs must get the COVID-19 vaccine by January 4, 2022.
“We are aware of concerns about health care workers choosing to leave their jobs rather than be vaccinated,” the CMS agency wrote. “While we understand that there might be a certain number of [healthcare] workers who choose to do so, there is insufficient evidence to quantify and compare adverse impacts on patient and resident care associated with temporary staffing losses due to mandates and absences due to quarantine for known COVID-19 exposures and illness.”
Survey results revealed 77 percent of healthcare workers said the federal vaccine mandate will not impact their career plan, 7 percent said they will find a new job without a vaccine mandate, 3 percent said they would retire earlier due to the mandate, and 2 percent said will quit medicine entirely due to the mandate.
However, 44 percent said the vaccine mandate imposed by the federal government will increase staff turnover at their organizations.
“I received a vaccine I didn’t want to get, so that I wouldn’t be fired,” wrote a surveyed healthcare worker.
The survey also looked at the impact of the federal vaccine mandate on employee morale. It found that 43 percent of respondents believe the federal vaccine mandate will have a significantly positive impact on employee morale, 35 percent believe the vaccine mandate will have a negative impact, and 12 percent believe the vaccine mandate will not impact employee morale in any way.
Court stays employer vaccine mandate
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Saturday temporarily stayed the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s emergency temporary standard that would require employers to set a mandate for employee vaccination.
“Because the petitions give cause to believe there are grave statutory and constitutional issues with the Mandate, the Mandate is hereby stayed pending further action by this court,” the circuit court ordered.
With multiple challenges filed in several federal courts, Bloomberg Law reported that the cases typically would be consolidated into one and heard by one court chosen by lottery. Circuit courts can rule on injunction requests before the lottery court is chosen, however; whichever court is selected will be able to lift the stay, according to the outlet.
The Emergency Temporary Standard faced challenges even before its publication in the Federal Register. Twenty-four attorneys general signed a letter Sept. 16 promising legal action against the federal government should the mandate come to pass. The letter argued that the mandate could exacerbate the worker shortage, as employees may quit rather than comply.
This injunction request included filings from the governments of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Utah, all signees on the September letter.
Meanwhile, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order limiting employer vaccine mandates earlier in October, while Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy issued an order Nov. 2 stating “no state agency shall participate in, or use state funds or personnel, to further a federal vaccine mandate for employers.”
Despite this stoppage and continued legal challenge, attorneys advise employers to work toward compliance anyway.
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U.S. Urges Court Not to Block Vaccine Mandate on Employers
The Biden Justice Department filed its case before an appeals court that has temporarily halted the measure.
The Biden administration on Monday argued that the federal government had all the power it needed to require large employers to mandate vaccination of their workers against the Covid-19 virus — or to require those who refuse the shots to wear masks and submit to weekly testing.
In a 28-page filing before the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which temporarily blocked the mandate with a nationwide stay last week, the Justice Department argued that the rule was necessarily to protect workers from the pandemic and was well grounded in law.
Keeping the mandate from coming into effect “would likely cost dozens or even hundreds of lives per day, in addition to large numbers of hospitalizations, other serious health effects, and tremendous costs,” the Justice Department said in its filing.
“That is a confluence of harms of the highest order.”
Blocked for now, Biden’s vaccine-or-test rule for workers faces uncertain future
It took just a day-and-a-half for President Biden’s vaccine-or-test rule covering 84 million workers to be blocked by a federal appeals court.
Now, the Biden administration is gearing up for a fight.
In a court brief filed late Monday, administration officials including Solicitor of Labor Seema Nanda warned that maintaining the stay “would endanger many thousands of people.”
“With the reopening of workplaces and the emergence of the highly transmissible Delta variant, the threat to workers is ongoing and overwhelming,” the administration argued, while dismissing the legal objections that led to the stay as lacking merit.
“Defending a policy is not a new thing,” said White House Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre earlier on Monday.
“The administration clearly has the authority to protect workers, and actions announced by the President are designed to save lives and stop the spread of COVID-19.”
What to know about Biden’s 3 COVID vaccine mandates
Alaska is among more than two dozen Republican-led states that filed lawsuits Friday to challenge the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for large employers.
If that sounds familiar, it’s because a week prior, Alaska was among a group of states that sued to challenge a different Biden administration vaccine mandate.
Update Regarding Revised Deadlines for Federal Vaccine Mandate for Employees
In a message to you last week, I promised that the university would monitor and adapt to changes to the federal government’s COVID vaccination mandate for federal contractors. At that time, based on new federal guidance, I announced that the university would not place employees on leave if they were not fully vaccinated by Dec. 8, and we notified employees that they had until Jan. 3, 2022, to receive at least one shot of the vaccine of their choice.
At the end of last week, the federal government changed its guidance once again that prompted us to make another slight adjustment to our plan. Under guidance released last Thursday, employees are required to receive both shots of a two-dose vaccine, or one shot of a one-dose vaccine, by Jan. 4. We will continue to work with employees who have shown a good faith effort to become fully vaccinated by Jan. 4.
This new guidance for federal contractors should not be confused with the new COVID vaccination mandate for private employers that was also issued last week. While the vaccination mandate for private employers was temporarily halted this weekend by a court order, it does not impact the federal contractor mandate that applies to the university. We will inform you if the federal contractor mandate is halted by a court.
Employees can visit the federal mandate information page of the university’s COVID website to see details about how to upload vaccination cards or how to apply for an accommodation.
We have started reviewing submitted requests for religious and medical accommodations.
Please remember that we are operating vaccine clinics on campus. Visit the university’s COVID website to see the schedule for upcoming clinics. I appreciate your patience as we continue to adjust our plan based on the evolving federal guidance.
How Kentucky’s biggest colleges are approaching the federal vaccine mandates
Dozens of public universities around the country have started requiring COVID-19 vaccines for employees following President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandates for federal contractors and large employers, but most of Kentucky’s biggest schools have not.
While the University of Kentucky has said all staff will need to either get vaccinated or seek an exemption, the University of Louisville, Eastern Kentucky University, Northern Kentucky University, and Western Kentucky University say they are still evaluating the new rules relating to mandates.
Those rules include one that requires all government contractors to mandate COVID-19 vaccines for employees and a separate Occupational Safety and Health Administration policy requiring employers of more than 100 people to require vaccines or a weekly negative test.
Most major universities in the U.S. receive money in the form of federal contracts, meaning President Biden’s Sept. 9 executive order, which covers parties with “a Federal Government contract or contract-like instrument,” applies to them. Those that don’t have federal contracts but employ more than 100 people are likely covered by the OSHA rule, according to Inside Higher Ed. Several dozen universities, including the University of Tennessee system, have responded to the orders by mandating vaccines. The deadline to comply with the policies is January 4.
In an email to campus on Oct. 29, UK President Eli Capilouto wrote that while 93% of university employees are already vaccinated, the new rule for government contractors means “a small percentage who are unvaccinated … are required to get vaccinated under this directive from the federal government.”
UK spokesperson Jay Blanton said last week that the university is “still finalizing those lists for the folks on the federal contracts that we believe will need to be vaccinated.”
Success without mandates
Unlike more than 1,100 other universities and colleges across the country, Kentucky’s largest public universities have declined to mandate COVID-19 vaccines, though several private schools have. That has caused problems for many students and teachers on some campuses without mandates. In Lexington, where hundreds of UK staff and students signed a petition in Sept. demanding a mandate, and in Louisville, UofL faculty have campaigned behind the scenes for a mandate.
Despite resisting those calls, the schools have encouraged and incentivized COVID-19 vaccines, a strategy that has proved largely successful. UofL’s COVID data dashboard shows that 85% of faculty and 87% of staff have been vaccinated. UK’s stats are higher, with 97% of faulty and 92% of staff vaccinated. At WKU, 89% of campus has been vaccinated. NKU and EKU do not publicly report vaccination figures.