The National Safety Council (NSC) has urged US employers to ‘prioritise worker health and safety’ amid the ongoing pandemic, by requiring their staff to be vaccinated.
The country’s leading non-profit workplace safety advocate also unveiled a worker vaccination guide for Covid-19; outlining four levels of requirements for various workplace risk profiles. It believes that long-term Covid-19 safety practices are the only recourse to combat the delta variant; and adapt to an evolving pandemic landscape.
Covid-19 vaccines “are the clearest route to ensuring worker safety and wellbeing is prioritised in the workplace”, according to NSC. Its recent study found that when employers required vaccines, there was a 35% increase in workers who got the shot.
“The data is clear. Workplace requirements are a proven way to encourage vaccine uptake; and accelerate the country’s path to community immunity against Covid-19,” stated Lorraine Martin, President and CEO of NSC. “Consistent with our mission, we’re calling on employers to advance the nation’s progress on living safely with this virus by requiring vaccines in a manner that’s appropriate for their workers’ risk profile.”
VACCINE REQUIREMENT GUIDE
To aid employers in their vaccination efforts, NSC issued guidance outlining a spectrum of vaccine requirement approaches (as illustrated below); and considerations for implementation in varying work settings. Requirements include:
- Honor System: Requiring workers to be vaccinated to return to work; or to loosen mask mandates without requiring proof of vaccination status.
- Partial Requirement: Requiring workers to either show proof of vaccination status or submit to frequent COVID-19 testing.
- Soft Requirement: Requiring workers to show proof of vaccination status before returning to certain job functions.
- Hard Requirement: Requiring all workers to show proof of vaccination status to enter a workplace.
PUTTING WORKER SAFETY & WELLBEING FIRST
This guidance follows the recent formal FDA approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. The widely anticipated decision replaces the emergency use authorisation granted by the agency last December. The full approval could make it easier for employers, the military, universities, as well as other public places, like restaurants and airports, to require vaccination; and may reassure some people who are hesitant about the vaccine, NSC highlighted.
NSC is also urging federal and state governments to remove prohibitions or barriers to vaccine requirements, expedite the full approval of vaccines and issue factual updates on vaccines as quickly as possible. “It’s clear Covid-19 has and will continue perhaps indefinitely to affect the way we live and work,” stated Martin. “Employers must put worker health and safety first. That begins with prioritising vaccination.”
NSC will also release additional information about encouraging Covid-19 vaccine uptake, addressing vaccine hesitancy and testing in the workplace as part of its SAFER effort next month.
Interestingly, around half of American employees want co-workers to produce ‘proof of vaccination’ for workplace return, according to another recent study. Click here to read more.
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