Hospitals push for mandate exceptions

County now says that non-vaccinated workers can stay on job with guidelines

Santa Clara County is backing off from its no-exceptions stance in requiring health care workers and others in high-risk settings to get booster shots after hospitals complained such a mandate would further strain staffs already under immense pressure because of the rampant omicron variant.

The county decided Monday to set up a waiver process to allow unvaccinated or non-boosted workers in hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, jails and other congregate places to remain in their current positions.

The county announced on Dec. 28 it was not going to allow any religious or medical exemptions for the 150,000 people affected by the order. The unvaccinated among them who refused to get shots be reassigned to lower-risk settings after Jan. 24 under the older.

But now, employees granted exemptions can do their regular jobs as long as they’re masked indoors at all times and get tested twice a week. They are prohibited from using break rooms and cafeterias, and cannot eat indoors when other colleagues are present, according to the waiver form.

Santa Clara was the only county in California to take a stricter approach than the state, which announced last month it would require health care workers to get boosters by Feb. 1 but allow individual exemptions. Contra Costa County announced a similar booster requirement in late December, but workers who don’t get the shot would be allowed to stay as long as they’re tested weekly.

To obtain waivers under Santa Clara County’s new rules, public and private hospitals, nursing homes and other public settings where people congregate must prove their staffing levels would be severely hampered. The public health department can also revoke a waiver at any time.

According to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, a fourth of all hospitals in the country are facing “critical staffing shortages” as the highly contagious omi

cron variant continues to drive up COVID-19 cases. Santa Clara County hospitals haven’t been spared as nurses, doctors and others call in sick after positive test results.

In an interview Monday, Santa Clara County’s top public health official, Dr. Sara Cody, explained the shift.

“If our primary goal is to ensure that critical services are staffed to be able to serve patients and others, whatever the critical sector is, then we have to listen very carefully to what’s happening,” she said. “And pivot is needed. I was hearing from hospitals that they were having lots of challenges with operations because so many staff were out sick.”

Cody said a recent statelevel change also led to her loosening the rules for the county’s booster mandate. In response to hospital staffing shortages, the state’s health department announced Saturday that asymptomatic workers who have tested positive for COVID-19 or were exposed to it can return to work early from quarantine.

“So at that point, I think the context certainly changed,” Cody added. “And it really didn’t make sense to insist that a hospital — or any other sector that’s covered under the booster order — if they’re having significant staffing problems, to exclude someone who is at higher risk of being positive but isn’t actually positive.”

On Monday morning, representatives from the Northern and Central California Hospital Council, which oversees hundreds of hospitals in a majority of the state’s counties, met with Cody to express concerns about the booster mandate.

“There were questions on the impact on the staffing and if you took out individuals who were exempted from the vaccine, we would be very concerned on being able to give care,” said Jo Coffaro, regional vice president of the hospital council. Coffaro said the hospitals still agree that boosters are important for health care workers and will try to make the county’s deadline.

“We believe the same thing as Dr. Cody in meeting the goal of having everyone vaccinated,” Coffaro said. “Will it be hard to meet the 24th date? Yes. But we’re going to do the best that we can.”

Stanford Health Care, Good Samaritan Hospital and El Camino Hospital did not respond to a request for comment.

Kaiser spokesman Karl Sonkin said the health care provider is is “evaluating the impact of the order on our ability to staff for and continue to provide care during the current surge. We appreciate the flexibility of Santa Clara County Public Health providing all of the area hospitals the waiver as necessary.”