Unvaccinated health workers are “unethical and appalling”—experts want mandates

Enlarge / A person gets a sticker after getting a Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. (credit: Getty | Joe Raedle)

Leading public health organizations and a growing number of independent health experts are coming together to push health care facilities to make COVID-19 vaccines mandatory for all health care workers. Some experts say such mandates are overdue and that failure for any health care worker to get vaccinated against the deadly pandemic coronavirus is both "unethical and appalling."

On Tuesday, seven health organizations-including the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America, the Association for Professionals in Epidemiology and Infection, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, and the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society-published a consensus statement, saying that "COVID-19 vaccination should be a condition of employment for all healthcare personnel."

Fully vaccinating health care workers has the advantage of protecting vulnerable patients, fellow health care workers, and the community overall, they write. And mandates are highly effective at getting high levels of vaccination among health care staff. For decades, many health care facilities have mandated seasonal flu vaccines to great success, they note. In the 2019-2020 flu season, health care facilities that mandated flu vaccines saw 94 percent of workers get vaccinated, while only 70 percent of health workers got vaccinated in facilities without mandates.

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