Some health care workers come forward at last minute as vaccination mandate arrives

Sharp HealthCare and Scripps Health, two of San Diego County’s largest health care providers, reported last-minute increases in vaccination numbers Thursday as a few stragglers came forward with proof of inoculation or signed up to get their shots on the day that the state’s mandate for all health care workers took effect.

It’s a big group of highly paid professionals. According to state data, 9.2 percent of San Diego County’s 1.42 million civilian jobs are in the health care sector. That’s approximately 133,000 people countywide.

As of Thursday, a day when the county health department announced 572 new cases, Sharp reported that 539 of its 18,000 employees had not proved they are vaccinated or requested a religious exemption, meaning that they would end up on unpaid administrative leave at the end of the day. But that number had dropped to 440 by the afternoon, and a final accounting Friday, a company representative said, might push the number lower still.

Scripps had 140 in that same unvaccinated and not exempt category to start the day, but as the evening approached, just 38 remained.

Chris Van Gorder, Scripps’ chief executive, said his organization had just kept pushing hard to get as many employees across the vaccination line as possible.

“We are doing all we can to help employees comply,” Van Gorder said. “We are reaching out to all employees who have not provided appropriate documentation, and many are finally providing documentation.”

A spokesperson with Kaiser Permanente San Diego said figures for its local workers would not be available until Friday.

By all accounts, the state’s mandate, made in early August, has moved vaccination needles in health care organizations across America’s largest state.

Scripps, for example, started its push with about 85 percent of its workforce fully vaccinated, but ended with the number at close to 94 percent. The remainder includes hundreds granted vaccination exemptions due to religious beliefs or for medical reasons. The numbers are similar at Sharp.

Six weeks ago, Palomar Health in North County said its vaccination rate among staff sat at about 70 percent. The organization reported Thursday that it had passed the 90 percent mark. Tri-City Medical Center in Oceanside said that 98 percent of its staff was vaccinated or had been provided a medical or religious exemption.

At Rady Children’s Hospital, which has refused to allow the unvaccinated to work at the bedside even if they have been granted exemptions, the vaccination rate was 88 percent on Aug. 5 when the state mandate was announced and stood at 95.6 percent by day’s end Thursday.

“There is no doubt that the mandate had a significant effect,” Van Gorder said during a recent interview.

While it is clear that hundreds of health care workers across the region will still be put on temporary leave and and some will eventually lose their jobs because they have chosen not to get vaccinated, the numbers appear to be small enough, as percentages of the overall workforce, that no organizations were planning to cut back on care due to mandate-driven worker shortages.

Scripps, which planned to terminate the 38 unvaccinated workers who have not requested and been granted exemptions, said it is leaving the door wide open for a quick rehire.

“We will work with any member of our staff intending to comply with state regulations, including welcoming any terminated employee back if they comply within the next month,” Van Gorder said.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it “typically takes two weeks after vaccination for the body to build protection against the virus that causes COVID-19.” Locations requiring proof of vaccination have generally not considered a person fully vaccinated until two weeks after a second shot, or after a single dose of the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

But that’s not the tack the state’s mandate takes.

According to the California Department of Public Health, “health care workers can provide patient care after their first dose of a one-dose regimen or their second dose of a two-dose regimen.” No two-week wait after getting the last shot to build full immunity is required.

Similar results were reported at hospitals and other medical providers across California as the mandate deadline arrived.

Recent polling by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care research group, found that concern over the surging Delta variant and the glut in cases it has caused over the summer, has been the main driver toward higher rates of vaccination in the general public.

According to Kaiser, 39 percent of those surveyed said Delta was a major reason for recent vaccination, followed by concerns about dwindling health care resources, knowing someone who got seriously ill or died after infection and wanting to participate in an activity that required vaccination.