New Jersey Requiring All Employees In 'Certain' Healthcare Facilities Get COVID-19 Vaccine Or Regular Testing By Early September
TRENTON, N.J (CBS) -- New Jersey is requiring all employees in "certain" healthcare facilities and other high-risk congregate settings to have the COVID-19 vaccine or get tested regularly. Full compliance is required by Sept. 7, Gov. Phil Murphy announced Monday.
Employees who are not fully vaccinated must undergo regular testing at a minimum of once to twice a week. See the list below for where the vaccination mandate is applicable.
"Our mandate is the floor," Murphy said. "If we do not see significant increases in vaccination rates among the employees in these settings, we are ready and willing to require all staff to be vaccinated as a condition of their employment."
"The spread of the Delta variant is no longer something that we can look at casually," Murphy said. "The surest way to end this pandemic is through vaccination."
With COVID cases soaring again, the largest health care union in New Jersey says it was no surprise when the governor made his announcement that individuals, like health care workers, have just over a month to get vaccinated.
Debbie White, the president of the Health Professionals and Allied Employees Union, tells CBS3 the variant is no joke.
"I saw our cases today, they are creeping up and staying up," she says.
White says the union and health officials are aware of people with religious and medical exemptions. For the workers who do not get vaccinated, they will be tested for COVID at a minimum of twice a week.
However, she says this is a step that has to be done. It's starting with the frontline workers who know the pain and frustration of the pandemic all too well.
"This pandemic has traumatized our health care workers," White says.
Murphy says private-sector employers may implement a more "rigorous" mandate.
CBS3's Wakisha Bailey contributed to this report.
