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 The plan, outlined in a statement from Hochul on Saturday, would
allow her to declare a state of emergency to increase the supply of
healthcare workers to include licensed professionals from other
states and countries as well as retired nurses.
Hochul said the state was also looking at using National Guard
officers with medical training to keep hospitals and other medical
facilities adequately staffed. Some 16% of the state's 450,000
hospital staff, or roughly 72,000 workers, have not been fully
vaccinated, the governor's office said.
The plan comes amid a broader battle between state and federal
government leaders pushing for vaccine mandates to help counter the
highly infectious Delta variant of the novel coronavirus and workers
who are against inoculation requirements, some objecting on
religious grounds.
Hochul attended the Sunday service at a large church in New York
City to ask Christians to help promote vaccines.
"I need you to be my apostles. I need you to go out and talk about
it and say, we owe this to each other," Hochul told congregants at
the Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn, according to an official
transcript.
"Jesus taught us to love one another and how do you show that love
but to care about each other enough to say, please get the vaccine
because I love you and I want you to live."
Healthcare workers who are fired for refusing to get vaccinated will
not be eligible for unemployment insurance unless they are able to
provide a valid doctor-approved request for medical accommodation,
Hochul's office said.
It was not immediately clear how pending legal cases concerning
religious exemptions would apply to the state's plan to move ahead
and terminate unvaccinated healthcare workers.
A federal judge in Albany temporarily ordered New York state
officials to allow religious exemptions for the state-imposed
vaccine mandate on healthcare workers, which was put in place by
former Governor Andrew Cuomo and takes effect on Monday.
[to top of second column] |
 A requirement for New York City
school teachers and staff to get vaccinated was
temporarily blocked by a U.S. appeals court just
days before it was to take effect. A hearing is
set for Wednesday.
The highly transmissible Delta variant has
driven a surge in COVID-19 cases and
hospitalizations in the United States that
peaked in early September and has since fallen,
according to a Reuters tally https://tmsnrt.rs/2WTOZDR.
Deaths, a lagging indicator, continue to rise
with the nation reporting about 2,000 lives lost
on average a day for the past week, mostly in
the unvaccinated.
While nationally cases are down about 25% from
their autumn peak, rising new infections in New
York have only recently leveled off, according
to a Reuters tally.
In an attempt to better protect the most
vulnerable, the CDC on Friday backed a booster
shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for
Americans aged 65 and older, adults with
underlying medical conditions and adults in
high-risk working and institutional settings.
On Sunday, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky
fleshed out who should be eligible for the
booster shots based on their work in high-risk
settings.
"That includes people in homeless shelters,
people in group homes, people in prisons, but
also importantly, our people who work...with
vulnerable communities," Walensky said during a
TV interview. "So our health care workers, our
teachers, our grocery workers, our public
transportation employees."
Walensky decided to include a broader range of
people than was recommended on Thursday by a
group of expert outside advisers to the agency.
The CDC director is not obliged to follow the
advice of the panel.
(Reporting by Nathan Layne in Wilton,
Connecticut and Mike Stone in Washington;
Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
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