As the highly contagious delta variant drives up COVID-19 cases throughout well-vaccinated California, the state announced Monday it will require all public and private health workers as well as state employees to get vaccinated and prove they had the shots or be subject to at least weekly testing for the disease.
The order, which comes amid growing alarm among health experts calling for tougher action and mandates, means health and state workers will no longer be allowed to “self-attest” that they were vaccinated.
“Because too many people have chosen to live with this virus, we’re at a point in this pandemic where individuals’ choice not to get vaccinated is now impacting the rest of us, and in a profound and devastating and deadly way,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said at a news conference at a Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Oakland.
The announcement drew praise from the National Union of Healthcare Workers, which represents more than 15,000 health care workers at hospitals, nursing homes and medical clinics in California.
“This action will save lives by reducing the risk of the virus spreading among caregivers and people seeking care,” the union’s president, Sal Rosselli, said in a statement. “If we have learned anything over the past year and a half, it’s that our healthcare system cannot function when hospitals are too short-handed to effectively serve patients fighting for their lives.”
The new policy for state workers will take effect Aug. 2, and testing will be phased in over the next few weeks. The new policy for health care workers, which also applies to high-risk congregate settings such as adult and senior residential facilities, homeless shelters and jails, will take effect on Aug. 9, and health care facilities will have until Aug. 23 to come into full compliance.
The order stops short of a vaccine mandate but requires regular COVID-19 testing and mask wearing for those who don’t get immunized. Newsom faces a Sept. 14 recall vote put on the ballot by people frustrated by his earlier lockdown orders and school closures.
California is not alone in taking action to try and contain the virus. New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio announced Monday the city will require its 340,000 municipal workers show proof of vaccination or be regularly tested for COVID-19. California has 246,000 state workers, Newsom said.
Also Monday, Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough announced he will make COVID-19 vaccines mandatory for all health care personnel who work in Veterans Health Administration facilities. And owners of some 300 San Francisco bars announced they will require customers to show proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test to enter.
California’s statewide daily case rate per 100,000 people has more than quadrupled from a low in May of 1.9 to at least 9.5. Hospitalizations that reached a low in June of under 900 are now approaching 3,000. The case rate for the unvaccinated is seven times higher than for the vaccinated, state health officials said.
State officials said vaccinations have picked up as the delta variant gains speed. The governor’s office reported a 4.4% increase in vaccinations for the week ending July 14 in a program offering incentives for getting the shots. They also touted a 16% increase in the number of people getting their first doses of the one-shot Johnson and Johnson vaccine for the week ending July 25.
But children under age 12, as well as people with certain medical conditions, cannot be vaccinated, and along with those who have chosen not to get the shots, that leaves many people in the state and across the country in whom the virus can and is spreading.
Health care workers, along with elderly residents of long-term care facilities, were among the first to be offered the vaccines when they were first available in December.
It’s unclear how many health care and state workers remain unvaccinated in California. A JAMA Network report published March 23 and based on December surveys of staff of a Pennsylvania health system found 16.3% of health care workers said they would not get the COVID-19 vaccine when it became available to them and 28.4% were undecided.
According to the latest Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll July 13 on people’s willingness to be vaccinated nationally, 54% of those who six months ago said they would “wait and see” about getting the shots have since gotten them. But 76% of those who had said they definitely would not get vaccinated, or do so only if required, remain unvaccinated.
Figures from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate 52.3% of all Californians are fully vaccinated, compared with 56.6% in New York, 51.8% in Pennsylvania, 48.5% in Florida and 43.4% in Texas.
On Monday, dozens of health care organizations, including the American Medical Association and American Nurses Association, signed a joint statement calling for a COVID-19 vaccine requirement for health care workers, as many employers already do for influenza, hepatitis B and pertussis.
The University of California-San Francisco, as part of the UC system, already requires its workers to be vaccinated. Dr. George Rutherford, an infectious disease specialist at UCSF, said Monday that the state’s latest order is reasonable.
“You have a disease that’s transmissible in hospitals for which we have a wonderfully effective vaccine,” Rutherford said, adding that if anything, he sees health care workers frustrated by the unvaccinated. “People are sort of tired of trying to accommodate people who won’t get vaccinated.”
Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland, who last week called for mandatory vaccination in schools, hospitals and other workplaces as case rates soar in her district, joined Newsom for Monday’s announcement and praised his leadership.
“It’s time we take bold steps,” she said, “bold action to increase vaccination rates.”
