County requiring vaccine for new hires
All new Allegheny County hires will be required to be vaccinated, and current employees who are unvaccinated will be required to wear masks and undergo regular COVID-19 tests, County Executive Rich Fitzgerald announced Thursday.
The policy, which will affect more than 6,000 executive branch and contracted employees, goes into effect Monday. Mr. Fitzgerald said at a news conference at the Allegheny County Courthouse the county has been considering the plan for two to three weeks.
“As a government and
essential service, which has been open throughout the pandemic with the vast majority of our employees here working, vaccination is the best way to ensure that the public we serve is protected,” he said. “With this new policy, the public can have confidence that the measures we are taking will protect their health and wellbeing.”
He said employees who can’t prove they have been vaccinated will be tested one or two times per week. The county will provide the tests. He also said unvaccinated employees must wear masks indoors and outdoors when physical distancing isn’t possible.
About two- thirds of county employees are currently vaccinated, Mr. Fitzgerald added.
Before being hired, new employees will be required to provide proof of a COVID19 vaccination. Mr. Fitzgerald said the county hires about 500 to 1,000 new employees every year.
When asked why already hired employees aren’t required to be vaccinated, Mr. Fitzgerald said, “It becomes more complicated when it comes to collective bargaining and some other things along those lines.” He said the county may revisit it in the future, but officials are going to evaluate how this policy works in the next 30 to 60 days.
He also said in response to a question asking if unvaccinated employees will have the option to work from home, “We have our employees coming back in. They can come into work.”
The county has seen a recent uptick in COVID-19 cases as a result of the highly contagious delta variant. Mr. Fitzgerald said he is “concerned” about the rise in cases and wants to make sure county employees and people who come in contact with them are safe.
“We know, as President Biden has said, this is a pandemic only among the unvaccinated,” he said. “We need to get the rest of the folks in our community vaccinated so that we’re all safe, including our elderly and also including those under 12 years old — youth — that are not eligible to get the vaccine at this point.”