San Francisco will require all employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 once the Food and Drug Administration fully approves one of the three vaccines beyond the current emergency authorization.
City employees will have 10 weeks to get vaccinated after the FDA approves any of the three authorized vaccines, the city announced Wednesday.
“It’s really a decision for the health and safety of our employees and our public that we serve,” said Carol Isen, San Francisco director of human resources. “It’s about protecting the city as an employer from what we deem to be unacceptable risk.”
Refusing to comply will result in consequences that may “go all the way up to termination,” another official said.
“But we’re focused on the education and outreach part of it now,” said Mawuli Tugbenyoh, chief of policy for the city’s human resources department.
Beginning Monday, employees have until July 29 to report their COVID-19 vaccination status to the city, providing documentation through the city’s portal with the name of the vaccine and date it was received.
Fifty-five percent of the city’s 35,000 employees said they have received at least one dose, while nearly 5% of employees said they are not vaccinated, according to the Department of Human Resources. The vaccination status of the others was not reported.
The number of eligible San Francisco residents who received at least one vaccine dose was 81% as of Wednesday, according to a press release from Mayor London Breed. In contrast, nearly 72% of all eligible residents were fully vaccinated.
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Tensions between local government and employer-based vaccine mandates have grown nationally, with 153 employees of Houston Methodist hospital resigned or were fired after refusing to comply with the hospital’s vaccine mandate.
The Los Angeles Unified School District was sued in March over its mandatory vaccine policy.
