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Companies consider different levels of COVID-19 vaccine requirement approaches

Virus Outbreak Vaccine Florida
Posted at 10:38 AM, Sep 03, 2021
and last updated 2021-09-03 13:47:55-04

More companies are expected to roll out COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

An advisory and insurance firm found more than half of businesses they surveyed said they would have some sort of vaccine mandate by the end of the year.

Right now, about one in five have some sort of vaccine requirement. Just under one in three are offering or considering offering a financial incentive to get the shots.

“Clearly, everyone needs to think about this for their business, for their employee base, and for the risk. That's inherent in how they do their business and interacting with others, and we know it's not a one size fits all,” said Lorraine Martin, CEO of the National Safety Council.

The National Safety Council is calling on all employers to require COVID-19 vaccines. They've laid out different levels of vaccine requirement approaches, everything from an honor system to hard requirements within workplace environments.

The tiers that might be better for one company versus another come down to risk.

“And I think sometimes it's really important for an organization to understand where they are on a continuum so they can communicate clearly what they're doing and why,” said Martin.

A recent survey conducted by NSC found when employers required vaccines, 35% more workers got the shot.

The National Safety Council also found new job postings with a vaccine requirement have jumped 90% in the last couple of weeks.

“And that's what we're seeing now from a lot of leaders across industry is they're taking that action now, not because they have to, but because they know it's the right thing to do,” said Martin.

HealthAction.org was created in partnerships with the National Safety Council to help businesses both large and small navigate all sorts of COVID-19 requirements, from masks to paid time off and other assistance to help employees get vaccinated. There are case studies with companies like Amazon that hosted pop-up vaccine clinics.

The site also includes a growing list of companies with vaccine requirements and those offering incentives from AT&T to Walmart.