Kaiser Permanente officials announced Monday that the health care provider will mandate all of its employees nationwide get vaccinated against COVID-19 by the end of September.
Roughly 78 percent of Kaiser employees and more than 95 percent of Kaiser physicians are already fully vaccinated as of July 31, according to Kaiser officials. The health care provider set a deadline of Sept. 30 for all of its employees to get fully vaccinated.
Michelle Gaskill-Hames, Kaiser’s senior vice president for hospital and health plan operations in Northern California, said Kaiser has worked with the labor unions representing its employees to craft the vaccine requirement and both sides did so with an emphasis on maintaining employee safety.
“Our health care workers are tired, they are disappointed that we’ve got a fourth surge and when we look at it, we believe that this was mostly preventable with vaccinations,” Gaskill-Hames said.
While Gaskill-Hames avoided giving exact numbers, she did confirm that Kaiser has had some so-called breakthrough COVID-19 cases among its vaccinated staff members.
She also noted the amount of those cases has been low, even when compared to other health care organizations and hospital settings. Across the entire Kaiser system, roughly 97-99 percent of current hospital admissions have been among unvaccinated people.
The mandate will apply across all of Kaiser’s locations in Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Oregon, Virginia, Washington and Washington, D.C. in addition to the health care provider’s locations in California, where Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a requirement last week for all health care workers to get vaccinated or be subject to frequent COVID-19 testing.
Across the country, Kaiser has more than 216,000 employees and employs more than 23,000 physicians.
“The COVID-19 vaccines offer us the path to move beyond the pandemic in the same way vaccination has brought an end to the epidemics of smallpox, polio, measles and other deadly diseases,” The Permanente Federation Co-CEO Dr. Ramin Davidoff said in a statement.
Gaskill-Hames said Kaiser will require its unvaccinated workers to begin testing regularly on Aug. 23, but that Kaiser officials hoped to go one step further and render the testing requirement unnecessary after Sept. 30 by reaching full vaccination.
Gaskill-Hames also argued that the best way to support the industry is to get vaccinated and significantly reduce the chance of getting hospitalized because of a COVID-19 infection.
“We saw a huge outpouring of love and support to the health care industry as we were going through the first and second surges,” she said. “We need that same help now as we’re starting to see our (intensive care units) fill up again.”
Valid Vaccine Mandate exemptions include religious exemptions and health reasons. Its in the fine print. Wonder why this article doesn’t mention it?
Don’t know, but there is a difference between a government mandate, where 1st Amendment issues may apply, and a private employer, where they do not.
I do know, as a retired KP employee, that annual flu shots were mandatory for all staff who had member contact (I was IT, and was not required but did).
Thank you! Taking the Jab would be more hazardous to my health than getting covid. I may already have natural immunity, the green holistic way. Unless it IS a bioweapon. In which case, ARREST them, convict them and punish them for international crimes against humanity.
But the vaccinated people are getting the virus too?
The CDC says that nearly half of the U.S. population has been fully vaccinated, but 97% of the Covid patients in the hospital were unvaccinated.
About your statistics of 97% of COVID patients in the hospital were unvaccinated; those numbers are people hospitalized since COVID started. At the beginning of the pandemic, there was no COVID vaccine, and most hospitalizations happened before people started getting the vaccine. Anyone that has had a statistics class knows that data and statistics can be presented to show any outcome that you choose. The numbers do not mean that 97% of current COVID hospitalizations ARE unvaccinated.
The CDC also studied an outbreak in Massachusetts, and it showed that 74% of cases were in fully vaccinated people.
https://tinyurl.com/ranhck2v
Excellent! There are no “if’s”, “and” or “but’s” here. This is where we are and didn’t have to be. I’m just glad my sister in law who was a MASH Nurse in Vietnam, not deceased and worked as a Nurse in SF for many years is not having to what these front line workers are now. Bless them all!
Makes me wonder what Judy, the sister in law I spoke of would have said, having seen what she did as a Surgical Nurse in Nam.
Wall Street Banks are privately owned and are the largest shareholder of the privately owned central bank of US the Federal Reserve
LoL because it’s not Federal and it’s not a reserve
The locus of corruption begins here with rampant money creation out of thin air by loaning it to other banks. Banks can make a loan by a few clicks on the keyboard and the money is created into the account of the recipient.
These people are the organ grinders and the blue state democrats are the dancing monkeys
I think Newsom is bozo the clown though and he needs to be recalled Sep 14
BTW Kaiser WC is a dump and I would never go there for med care
Homeless people come in off the street and hang out in the lounges
@OV: Like I’ve said before; I wouldn’t take my dog to that WC Kaiser.
Way too many friends with “screw-up” stories, and mis-diagnosis.
I’m able to “THRIVE” by staying away from all Kaiser medical places.
“The COVID-19 vaccines offer us the path to move beyond the pandemic in the same way vaccination has brought an end to the epidemics of smallpox, polio, measles and other deadly diseases,” The Permanente Federation Co-CEO Dr. Ramin Davidoff said in a statement.
It took 50 years for those vaccines to offer herd immunity, take us to a place where it offered the vaccine recipient adequate protection. Are we to wait 50 years for a normal life? Lockdowns aren’t working, masks aren’t realistic, vaccines work only to help curb severe infection at best so what is the plan?
Start with maybeeee controlling our southern border? The southern Covid crossing, that is.Wow! What a novel idea!
From the CDC website:
“Polio was once one of the most feared diseases in the U.S. In the early 1950s, before polio vaccines were available, polio outbreaks caused more than 15,000 cases of paralysis each year. Following introduction of vaccines—specifically, trivalent inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV) in 1955 and trivalent oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV) in 1963—the number of polio cases fell rapidly to less than 100 in the 1960s and fewer than 10 in the 1970s.”
Polio was effectively wiped out in the US in well under a decade. Why did it take that long? NOT EVERYBODY GOT VACCINATED!
So if it takes 30 years to wipe out COVID, we know why that will be, and who is responsible for that failure.
SarBear—
It doesn’t take 50 years for a vaccine to offer
protection. When was the last time you saw
anyone affected by polio or wearing leg braces.
The funny thing is about the polio vaccine and polio is that the new cases of polio in countries that Bill Gates pushed the vaccine on are not the wild poliovirus, but the same strain that is is the vaccine.
Kaiser tells their employees they had better get the “vaccine “ or in other words, the experimental drug that has no track record of outcome. Does anyone know why I take many years to approve a drug?
FOLLOW THE MONEY!!!!
I am not able to take any vaccine due to medical “contraindications.” Many people who get severe injury or death from these experimental injections probably had some medical condition that was a contra indicator. With this rush rollout, I seriously doubt the injectors are trained to screen for these issues.
My ex-wife nearly died last month after her second injection … cerebral encephalopathy.
What the world needs is education about how to treat these virus outbreaks at home with legacy therapies that have been used for many generations. Too many folks are getting symptoms and being told by their doctor to isolate themselves, take some aspirin, and go to the hospital if they develop any severe symptoms. What the ef?
People … this virus is HIGHLY survivable with early treatment at home. Vitamins D & C with Zinc is critical. Adjust the diet to consume anti-inflammatory veggies and herbs. Take a lot of chicken soup broth (the oldest medicine from grandma’s kitchen) Cease all intake of processed sugars, and junk food. Get daily moderate exercise. Take medicine to treat symptoms such as antihistimes, and other safe & effective drugs that have been successfully used for many many years and also have been properly safety tested by FDA.
We do not know the long term dangers of the experimental vaccines … because they were quickly pushed into the market due to “emergency” authorization. Now we are hearing from Israel, the UK, and even in the USA of many cases of vaccinated contracting the virus.
Please use caution, and ask questions before you decide. Take time to do your own research before you allow yourself or your kids to be injected with substance that has not been properly tested by FDA, does not protect you from giving or getting the virus, and has been reported through the CDC’s VAERS early warning system to have killed and seriously injured many many thousands who took the injections.
Be safe, and take care of your health before you get sick. The human immune system is AMAZING … if you take care of it.
+1
The fourth industrial revolution that will be all made possible with the exponential increase in collection of personal data from our vaccine passports:
Constellation – Honest Data for a Connected Future
– layer 0 distributed ledger technology built on DAG (directed acyclic graph) architecture using generative economic principles with the key token’s utility representing the indexing of the new currency, data
– SRIB phase 2 stage of procurement (very far in terms of adoption) of this distributed ledger technology ecosystem, Constellation’s hypergraph transfer protocol (HGTP) with the Department of Defense, US Air Force, and several other federal agencies that will allow full interoperability of data across legacy and blockchain systems, including the operating systems of vaccine passports.
Quant Network’s Overledger partnership with Constellation’s Hypergraph
– Quant Network has inked the articles of incorporation to create the central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) for the Digital GBP, Latin American digital dollar, and more
SEC Announces Enforcement Task Force Focused on Climate and ESG Issues
– Active efforts being made to develop quantification of a scoring system to enforce ESG, DEI standards i.e. social credit score system
An AI-powered, rule-based, smart-contract-layered digital economy where early investors will make a fortune. Example of arguments on why this would be needed: Autonomous Vehicles (AV) need to make a quantified decision on how to divert the vehicle if a ball rolls into the street, and whether to turn into oncoming traffic, run over a child, or an adult, and what the impact to society will be for each outcome. A lot of concepts from movies and TV series are all weaved together in this future, and we’re much closer for it being reality than we think. How much good vs bad comes out of this is to be seen.
I am fully vaccinated and I think others should be as well. However, mandates are what weak leaders do when they can’t convince people. Shame on the Kaiser leadership. You are failed and you’re weak.
I agree 100% I am also vaccinated and glad I did it but Kaiser is a terrible employer as a former long time employee they now treat the employees terribly compared to the old days when they cared about them. It is not right to make anybody do something by mandate or else.
Wait for the next headline. “California nursing shortage effecting routine care in all hospitals”
You reap what you sow. Everyone’s lost their collective minds.
why the vaccine does not stop you from getting china virus
it only lessens symptoms
its a virus just like the flu shot it only lessens the symptoms
its not a cure or a killer of china virus
its snake oil
why if the vaccine works then why are we being locked down
if the masks work then why do we need to pay trillions for vaccines and be forced to get the vaccine
and we will be getting variants just like the flu that has many variants
yet we never shut down for flu
or are the dems/fraud fauci/conartists/china
actually going to tell us the truth
this is all for political gain and you lemmings are doing exactly what they want
the sky is falling the sky is falling
the numbers are higher aaaahhhhhhh
yes people die and they die from flu and pneumonia and smoking cigarettes’ and jumping from bridges
i do find it hilarious that all of these mandates
are dated
like on this day we shall wear masks because that is the date it comes
or we wont wear masks as of this date because the day before this date is very dangerous
its like a joke anyways ….
Couple of things you’re wrong on.
1st. It’s called a Coronavirus. Not China flu you racists.
2nd. It is NOT a shot like the flu as the flu shot contains part of the virus. Covid shot contains 0% of the Coronavirus.
“why if the vaccine works then why are we being locked down
if the masks work then why do we need to pay trillions for vaccines and be forced to get the vaccine” you literally answered this in you other statement. They help make your symptoms a lot less. But if you happen to get it you can still pass it on to somebody that’s not shocked. Which why masks are STILL required.
Please look up what’s the difference between a flu and a Coronavirus. As they are 2 different things. I don’t remember the normal flu killing over 3 million in a year.
People who say this is all political it’s just ignorant. They forget the whole world shut down so if you’re saying this is political then what about all the other countries including the ones that absolutely hate the US I don’t think that they would be in on this. Think about that before you say that.
Comparing this to other things like Cancer and suicide is just dumb. This just proves that people who say this stuff have Zero information. Stop with Twitter and fb and look at the real information. It’s really sad what comes out of people’s mouths
No Mast mandate have ever been dated it’s based on the numbers if the numbers were not going up we would never be in a mandate but because people are irresponsible and not wearing a mask this is spreading even more
To ‘Me’,
Triggered much?
You should do some research. Talking Heads empty suits on MSM is not doing research but spouting propaganda.
Your narrative was an Epic Fail when Fraudci got exposed supporting Wuhan gain of function research.
Just say NO to Experimental injections.
The hypocrisy of democrats has no bounds. While they make everyone get the vaccine they allow illegal aliens to spread the Chinese virus around the country. Aliens have been coming into the country since Joe the buffoon took office. My bet is these aliens have been causing the current spike. The border patrol lets everyone in that isn’t sick in bed. We have lost our way. Common sense is out the window.
You should really get off of Fox News. Blaming people at the border for the surge in cases is trying to absolve people from personal responsibility and should not be an excuse for people to not be vaccinated.
Least vaccinated states are:
Alabama(Republican governor blames unvaccinated for case surge)
Louisiana
Arkansas
Wyoming
Mississippi
None of these states are border states.
Why is this such an issue but only in CA? Because our government here sucks.
No other state is mandating masks
Nor are they forcing ppl to get the vaccine
California is ran by a bunch of clowns.
It’s all political
Whether you believe me or not, are vaccinated or not, you need to push back. It’s no one’s business if you are vaccinated or not.
It’s your personal choice, there are a ton Of shootings in highway 4, why aren’t bulletproof vests mandated?
Wake up sheep
They want control
Push back, fight for your rights. Don’t give in so quickly.
So the democrats want everyone to carry have a vaccine card but tell us at the same time it’s not possible for voters to carry a voter ID card?