Updated at 9:50 p.m.
Days after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention labeled Chittenden County as an area with “substantial” coronavirus transmission, Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger said Tuesday that his administration was “considering vaccination and testing requirements” for city employees.
In a written statement provided to VTDigger, the mayor said he expected to make a decision this week after consulting with leaders of the labor union representing city employees. “I encourage other employers to make the same consideration,” he said.
One employer that appears unlikely to immediately follow suit is the state of Vermont.
At a press conference Tuesday, Gov. Phil Scott said that requiring state workers to get vaccinated is “not something that we are considering at this point.” Such a mandate, he said, would likely have to be negotiated with the Vermont State Employees’ Association, which represents state workers.
“We probably will talk with them about that,” Scott said. “But at this point, we aren’t — we aren’t imposing that.”
The state does not know how many of its roughly 9,200 full- and part-time employees are vaccinated, according to Scott spokesperson Jason Maulucci. “Given the state’s overall [vaccination rate] and demographics of state employees, we expect that it is high,” he said.
A VSEA representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Employer mandates
Businesses, colleges and health care providers in the region have also been considering whether to require employees to be vaccinated.
On Tuesday, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health announced that it would require vaccinations “as a condition of employment,” effective Sept. 30. The Lebanon, New Hampshire-based health system, which serves many Vermonters, has more than 13,500 full- and part-time employees. Roughly 80 percent of these employees are fully vaccinated, system spokesperson Cassidy Smith told VTDigger.
The University of Vermont Medical Center is not yet requiring its employees to be vaccinated, according to spokesperson Annie Mackin. She said the vast majority of the hospital’s 7,000 clinical and patient-facing staff have already been vaccinated.
“We are taking a thoughtful and intentional approach toward next steps, including whether we will institute a mandatory vaccine policy for all our workforce, and plan to make a decision in the near future,” Mackin told VTDigger in a written statement.
The Burlington hospital’s parent organization, the University of Vermont Health Network, released a similar statement Tuesday. The network said it was “actively moving toward the goal of having our entire workforce of nearly 15,000 employees and physicians in Vermont and Northern New York vaccinated against Covid-19.”
The Vermont Medical Society, which represents roughly 2,400 physicians and physicians’ assistants throughout the state, announced Tuesday that it had signed on to a joint statement urging health care employers to mandate vaccinations.
“In Vermont, we are seeing the weekly data correlating our high vaccination rates with low rates of hospitalization and death, even in the face of increasing cases,” said medical society President Simha Ravven, chief medical officer of the Burlington-based Howard Center. “We cannot let our State go backwards in our fight against the new delta strain and vaccinating all health care workers will continue to save lives in Vermont.”
Vermont’s higher education institutions are responding differently to the resurgence of the virus.
Last month, the University of Vermont mandated coronavirus vaccines for all students. The university does not require faculty and staff to be vaccinated and does not track employee vaccination status, spokesperson Joel Seligman said Tuesday.
“We are continuously monitoring the pandemic and will make adjustments to our policies if and when necessary to ensure the health and safety of the campus and community,” he said in a written statement. “We are pleased that Chittenden County’s vaccination rate is over 90% for the age groups who comprise the vast majority of our employee population.”
Colchester-based Saint Michael’s College, which has more than 400 part- and full-time employees, said in a statement that it encourages but would not require its employees to be vaccinated.
“We are reassured that over 90 percent of our employees are currently vaccinated,” the statement reads. “If the College were to require vaccines of its employees, it would provide for religious and health exceptions as we do for students.”
At GlobalFoundries, which employs more than 2,000 people at a semiconductor plant in Essex Junction, all employees are back on site and must wear masks, according to spokesperson Julie Moynehan. She said the company is encouraging employees to get vaccinated.
“Given the rise in cases, we are still reviewing the situation and may be making some adjustments in the coming weeks to continue to ensure the safety of all our employees,” Moynehan said in an email.
Queen City mandate?
Burlington, the state’s most populous city, is in a region of the state that has relatively high vaccination rates. As of Tuesday morning, more than 85 percent of eligible residents in Chittenden County had at least one vaccine dose, according to the Vermont Department of Health. The department estimates that between 71% and 80% of Burlington residents are vaccinated.
Chittenden County has also seen the highest number of new cases in the past two weeks, with just over 190 new infections out of more than 430 new infections statewide. The county includes roughly a quarter of the state’s population.
Burlington City Council President Max Tracy told VTDigger on Tuesday that he would need to speak with union leaders before supporting a vaccine mandate.
“I think that it’s important to follow a collaborative process before implementing any of that because that’s going to be the way that we’ll be able to achieve the highest level of vaccine compliance,” Tracy said.
A local representative of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which represents Burlington city workers, did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Kerin Durfee, Burlington’s director of human resources, told VTDigger that 87% of city employees have been vaccinated.
The Burlington Education Association, which represents the city’s teachers, would likely back a vaccine mandate — assuming there was room for religious and medical exemptions — if it meant a return to a normal school year, according to the union’s president, Beth Fialko Casey.
“Our membership would support any move that gets us back in school, all at once, safely and Covid-free,” Fialko Casey said.
Burlington City Councilor Sarah Carpenter, D-Ward 4, said that if labor unions representing city employees were on board with a vaccine mandate she would support the policy. She said there may be nuances to employment law the city needs to work out with the unions in order to enact a mandate.
“Personally, I would support that,” she said. “It’s beyond me why you wouldn’t get vaccinated.”
Carpenter said she recognized that some people in the community are not sure whether to trust health experts and take the vaccine. But because city employees frequently interact directly with the public, she said, it’s important that they be vaccinated to reduce the spread of Covid-19.
“I certainly think we should lead the way,” Carpenter said. “We’re an organization that interacts with the public, and we know that the virus can be easily spread in these areas. And so we just need to do everything we can to not let that happen.”
City Councilor Jane Stromberg, P-Ward 8, said she also would support a city employee vaccine mandate.
“I’m supportive of anyone getting the vaccine,” she said. “And if a requirement is what it takes to shift people, I think that’s an obvious thing to do.”
Councilor Joan Shannon, D-South District, said there would likely need to be an exemption in such a policy to take into account those who can’t receive the vaccine for medical reasons. Unless any grave concerns were raised by employees, she would favor the proposal, she said.
“I don’t know what the argument would be that people should be allowed to put others at risk that way,” Shannon said.
Fred Thys and Lana Cohen contributed reporting.
