The amount of job posts requiring a Covid vaccine were up 34% on August 7th when compared to the prior month, according to job site Indeed.

The jump comes as the Covid delta variant fuels a surge in new U.S. cases. Large employers like Walmart, Google, Tyson Foods, United Airlines, US Military and McDonald’s are starting to mandate vaccines for some or all workers, and more businesses mandate vaccination as they bring their workforces back to the office.

Some job ads aren’t specific. The ads ask for vaccination without explicitly mentioning Covid. Those listings are up 90% over the same period. “They don’t mean the polio vaccine. It’s so apparent [they mean Covid-19],” according to AnnElizabeth Konkel, an economist at the Indeed Hiring Lab who authored the analysis.

The jump in businesses requiring a vaccine for new hires also coincides with a record number of job openings in June.

Several big firms have also postponed plans to bring employees back to the office. Facebook, Amazon and Lyft, for example, recently delayed return-to-work plans into 2022.

The growing list of businesses mandating vaccination may normalize the requirement and lead other hesitant employers to do the same, Konkel said. That’s especially likely if the Food and Drug Administration grants full approval to one or multiple Covid vaccines.

About 1.3 million people are employed by the more than 15,000 nursing homes that participate in Medicare and Medicaid. About 40% of those workers are not vaccinated, according to CMS data.

The federal government, and some states, began taking an increasingly muscular approach to boosting vaccination rates last month amid a plateau in vaccinations and the rapid spread of the Delta variant, including requiring all federal workers to attest that they have been vaccinated or be regularly tested for the virus. A slew of private companies have also since announced similar requirements for their workers.

The move comes as the more transmissible Delta variant now accounts for 99% of Covid-19 cases in the United States and as data shows a link between low vaccination rates in certain nursing homes and rising coronavirus cases among residents.

In the seven states in which less than half of nursing home staff is vaccinated, weekly cases were 7.9 times higher in the week ending August 1 than they were in the week ending June 27. Meanwhile, in states that have vaccinated a larger share of staff than average (more than 60%), cases reported in the week ending August 1 were only three times higher than cases reported in the last week of June.

“We have seen tremendous progress with low Covid rates within the nursing home population and I think we’re seeing signs that it is starting to tip the other direction. We don’t want to go backwards,” said Jonathan Blum, CMS’ principal deputy administrator.

Blum said CMS officials are “confident we have the legal authority” to implement the new regulation, noting that the law allows CMS to take action as it relates to the health and safety of nursing home residents.

“We are on a wartime footing here. We are leaning in to making sure we are taking the steps that we can to ensure the health and safety of Americans and we will continue to do so,” Johnson said. “Delta’s not waiting and so we’re not waiting.”

For more details, use:

https://apnews.com/article/business-health-coronavirus-pandemic-nursing-homes-2e6189cd41068b1e0f643ee7e4bfbb92

https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/18/politics/nursing-homes-federal-funding/index.html

Workers at a hospital in Houston, TX have been suspended, and could potentially be fired, due to a company mandate requiring all hospital employees to receive the Covid-19 vaccine. This mandate has sparked protests from employees who have been suspended.

According to the Detroit Free Press, Houston Methodist CEO Marc Boom said the 178 workers represent less than 1% of almost 25,000 employees.

“We are nearly 100% compliant with our COVID-19 vaccine mandate,” Bloom said in an email to staff Tuesday. “Houston Methodist is officially the first hospital system in the country to achieve this goal for the benefit of its patients.”

Bloom said 27 of the 178 suspended workers have received one dose of vaccine, and that he is hopeful they will get the second dose. All are suspended for two weeks and are set to be fired if they fail to be fully vaccinated.

“I wish the number could be zero, but unfortunately, a small number of individuals have decided not to put their patients first,” Bloom said.

An additional 285 employees received a medical or religious exemption, and 332 were granted deferrals for pregnancy and other reasons.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has issued guidance saying employers have the right to require COVID-19 vaccination, citing a “direct threat” to others in the workplace.

Bloom said the science, along with data from 300 million doses already distributed in the U.S. alone, proves the vaccines are safe and necessary “if we are going to turn the corner against COVID-19.”

The number of positive cases and hospitalizations continue to drop across the nation continue to decline, he said, proving the vaccines’ effectiveness.

Houston Methodist isn’t the only place requiring vaccines, though. Hundreds of colleges, universities, nursing homes and hospitals are requiring staff and students to be vaccinated. These mandates have been challenged by some and praised by others, which is to be expected as the world recovers and opens up again.

Under Phil Pangrazio’s leadership, Ability360 developed into one of the nation’s largest Centers for Independent Living and established itself as a premiere model for other centers throughout the country.

Phil has been helping build Ability 360 for 21 years now, prior to working at Ability 360 he started off in health care and got his Master’s Degree in Health Services Administration and Policy from Arizona State University. He worked for 10 years at Maricopa Integrated Health System and Maricopa Medical Center, where he held multiple positions in financial Management and Administration. Then Phil landed his Job with Ability 360.

Phil guided Ability360 to an annual budget of more than $48 million and the expansion of its programs and services to include Home Care Services, SSA Work Incentives Planning and Assistance, Ticket-to-Work Employment, Youth Transition Services, and the Living Well with a Disability program, among others.

Phil also directed the planning, construction and financing of the Ability360 Center in Phoenix, home to Ability360 and 9 other non-profit organizations that serve people with disabilities in Arizona.  The $12.3-million Ability360 Sports & Fitness Center was opened in 2011, the first of its kind in the southwest.

Creating Ability360

The whole goal was to bring together the different non-profits, that they always collaborated with, but not to the degree they could have if they were closer in proximity, this concept came up and gave them the idea for the Disability services campus, they started thinking about it and they thought ‘hey this could be really cool’ they put in the sports fitness center which was kind of the cherry on the cake, pretty unique, really never had been done In the country, first to do this disability campus thing and also a sports facility for the disabled, sports and fitness is important to these individuals, and without this they might not have a place to host their games, like wheel chair basketball, etc., and a place to call home.

Phil first got involved in the early 1990s. He was first on board for 9 years before becoming CEO, he was involved in the governance aspect of things which he believes helped him when he stepped into the CEO role. There was a desire to do this (build a campus for the disabled) for a while, most of the individuals who were on the board when Phil started are no longer there, and when he started he looked up to these board members as his mentors and Hero’s, they wanted ability 360 to be self-stainable, efficient and didn’t want to be dependent on government grants. They wanted a more diversified revenue stream. Phil started the community based program that partners with us, which is a revenue stream for the organization which allows them to have resources to invest in other things.

The Future for Agencies

The Future is going to be interesting for the organization, and disability rights as a whole. Disability Rights are evolving and changing, but it is hard to say what it will look like in the future, The work that was done in the 70s and 80s was so prominent, however there will still be plenty for the younger generation to work on and advance, and advance disability rights depending on what is going on at the time, but it will definitely be interesting to see what is in the cards for people with disabilities in the future, hopefully more people with disabilities  will be working and not having to live off the government , because that isn’t the best place to be in.

Advice

The biggest thing is to treat your employees with fairness, listen to them, and realizing you can’t function without your people. Treat them well – that goes along way.