Delta Air Lines announced a new monthly surcharge Wednesday of $200 for every employee who is not vaccinated and enrolled in the company’s health plan.
The company, which requires all new hires to be vaccinated, will also stop extending pay protection to unvaccinated employees who contract the virus, starting Sept. 30, and will require weekly testing for unvaccinated workers, and those employees will be required to pay, starting Sept. 12.
LLOYD AUSTIN MANDATES COVID-19 VACCINE WITH ABOUT ONE-FOURTH OF TROOPS UNVACCINATED
Delta CEO Ed Bastian said these decisions were necessary because the average hospitalization from the virus costs the company $50,000, and every recent hospitalization the company has had from the virus were employees who were not fully vaccinated.
“This surcharge will be necessary to address the financial risk the decision to not vaccinate is creating for our company,” Bastian said to employees in a company-wide memo.
Bastian, who urged all employees to get vaccinated to combat the aggressiveness of the delta variant, said 75% of Delta employees are vaccinated, but the company hopes to get “as close to 100% as possible.”
“Protecting yourself, your colleagues, your loved ones and your community is fundamental to the shared values that have driven our success for nearly a century,” the memo continued. “Vaccinations are the safest, most effective, and most powerful tool we have to achieve our goals, live up to our values and move forward.”
Many companies are implementing similar tactics in an effort to encourage vaccination among employees. United Airlines, a Delta competitor, went a step further, saying on Aug. 6 that an employee who does not get vaccinated could face termination.
Other major companies and organizations are creating vaccine mandates for their employees. Private companies such as CVS, the Walt Disney Company, and Chevron are all adding vaccine mandates for certain employees in their companies.
Government entities such as the Pentagon and New York City also require some of their staff members to be vaccinated, with Mayor Bill de Blasio announcing on Monday that all public school teachers must be vaccinated before returning to school next month.
On Monday, President Joe Biden encouraged business leaders to mandate vaccines for their employees, calling on those who were awaiting full approval of the Pfizer vaccine.
“If you’re a business leader, a nonprofit leader, a state or local leader who has been waiting for full FDA approval to require vaccinations, I call on you now to do that. Require it,” Biden said. “If you are one of the millions of Americans who said they will not get the shot until it has full and final approval of the FDA, it has now happened. The moment you’ve been waiting for is here. It’s time for you to go get your vaccination, and get it today.”
Vaccine mandates have gotten pushback from some corners of the private sector. A business in Huntington Beach, California, mandated last month that anyone who enters Basilico’s Pasta E Vino show proof that they are not vaccinated.
Some states have also resisted the concept of vaccine passports, with governors of states such as Arizona, Texas, and Florida banning the practice.
Other airline companies have adopted a more middling approach, with American Airlines calling the decision of whether or not to get vaccinated “a personal choice between pilots and their medical professional” earlier this month.
The Food and Drug Administration granted the two-shot Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine full approval on Monday, paving the way for other vaccine mandates from companies that were hesitant to require vaccines that had only been granted emergency use authorization.
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Moderna, which was also granted emergency use authorization last year for its mRNA coronavirus vaccine, filed for full FDA approval a month after Pfizer, though full approval has not been granted yet. Johnson & Johnson, which obtained emergency use authorization in March, expects to file soon.
The U.S. has experienced more than 38 million cases of COVID-19, and 51.7% of the nation’s total population is fully vaccinated against the disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
