Our View: All employers need to step up on COVID-19 shots

Each day now, the latest COVID-19 surge is leaving about 70,000 Americans hospitalized – the most since the dark days of winter – and nearly 600 dead. This is a Pandemic of the Unvaccinated because only a tiny fraction of the most ill, and almost none who died, were vaccinated.

The highly contagious delta strain is inflicting greatest harm among the 30% of adults (about 74 million people) who have free access to the vaccine and just say no, apart from those few with legitimate health concerns.

And let’s not forget another group at risk – the 48 million children under 12 not cleared by science for the shots. They’re getting sick, too. Among children of all ages, there were 94,000 cases last week. And while the young still remain largely at lower risk of serious illness, the vast and growing number of infections and law of percentages means hundreds are filling pediatric wards in the hardest-hit states.

Nor are they immune to long-term COVID-19 symptoms. And where child deaths in an average flu season are around 100, COVID-19 has killed 400. That might sound like favorable odds from a national perspective, but ask parents whether they want to risk it.

Inoculations remain the answer, and where the unvaccinated can’t be enticed, there are ways to exert pressure:

More U.S. employers are requiring workers to be vaccinated, and that includes at least a quarter of health care systems across the country. Others should follow as vaccines receive full regulatory approval in the weeks ahead. The Biden administration has correctly moved to vaccinate the military and require it for all federal workers.

What’s needed is for certain recalcitrant unions – such as the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association with its 26,000 federal officers or the American Postal Workers Union – to drop their opposition to vaccine requirements. Misplaced arguments about freedom or the right to collectively bargain over the issue ignore the reality of a disease spreading like wildfire. To safeguard children, the American Federation of Teachers last week abandoned its opposition to mandates.

Medicare changes need to be made to pressure long-term care facilities as an industry to require vaccination of all staff. While breakthrough infections and illness are rare, what few occur fall disproportionately on those over 65. Yet only 56.7% of nursing home workers are fully vaccinated.

Vaccine mandates are unfortunately tough for the nation’s 15,600 nursing home facilities because staffing shortages are such that any facility requiring vaccinations could easily lose workers to a place that doesn’t mandate. This is why it’s eminently sensible for the Biden administration to explore, as has been reported, whether to restrict Medicare dollars in order to persuade long-term facilities to require immunization for all staff. Imposing this incentive on a broad scale might prevent a nonmandating facility from poaching workers from another.

For those employers hesitant to require shots for their workers, there are other reasonable steps to take that will bring financial pressure on reluctant workers. Tests for COVID-19 can cost $50 to $100 at a doctor’s office, and bosses might consider requiring employees who balk at being vaccinated to pay for the cost of being tested twice a week. And while it remains unclear when or whether COVID-19 treatment costs will hike health insurance premiums (health costs have been constrained by decisions to defer elective procedures), some employers are looking to impose compulsory surcharges of $20 to $50 for those who refuse to be vaccinated.

The COVID-19 vaccines are so safe that the Center for Disease Control and Prevention urged Wednesday that pregnant people receive the shots. Research shows that the vaccine deposits antibodies to COVID-19 in breast milk. And yet hospitals in areas of high infection among low vaccination rates are running out of staff to care for the sick in the pandemic.

Refusing to be vaccinated isn’t an expression of free choice; it’s an abrogation of basic common sense and community responsibility.