Vaccinating county workers

The potential for requiring vaccinations of L.A.County’s entire workforce comes a day after California announced that all state and health care workers will need to verify they’ve been vaccinated against the coronavirus or undergo testing once a week. Locally, the city of Pasadena, has also mandated that all of its employees be vaccinated.

“I want to indicate that I personally strongly favor requiring vaccinations of all 112,000 of our county workers, with a very very focused exception of any kind. I suppose testing could substitute, but we can talk about it,” said Supervisor Sheila Kuehl, whose District3 is seeing some of the highest numbers in the current spike. “That is something that the board itself will need to decide, along with the supervisors of those employees.”

Keuhl was echoing her fellow board members, who all appeared to support a mandate for county workers. But where they sharpened their focus was on the county’s public safety workers, who despite priority access and incentives, lag behind the state’s average for vaccinated adult residents, according to reports.

A Los Angeles Times survey found that less than 30% of L.A.County Sheriff’s Department staffers have received vaccine doses through employee clinics. Similar numbers show up in the city of L.A., where police and firefighters have lower vaccination rates, according to reports.

Board members expressed concern because such workers mingle with the public every day. They agreed to call the County’s Fire Chief Daryl Osby and Sheriff Alex Villanueva to explain their department’s efforts on vaccinations.

In the city of L.A., officials have had to answer similar questions.

The answer: Politics and misinformation, according to LAPD Chief Michel Moore.

“When we ask ‘why not?,’ the primary issue we hear is the speed of which this vaccine was developed, and the political weaponization of this pandemic,” Moore told reporters in June.

The number of LAPD officers and civilian employees