Tens Of Thousands Of Health Workers Have Not Been Vaccinated Against COVID-19, New York Considers Deploying The National Guard

Illustration of the deployment of the National Guard to Washington DC ahead of the inauguration of the President of the United States last January. (Twitter/ChiefNGB)

JAKARTA - New York Governor Kathy Hochul is considering hiring the National Guard and out-of-state medical workers to fill hospital staff shortages.

This is because tens of thousands of health workers will lose their jobs due to failing to meet the COVID-19 vaccination target due this Monday local time.

The plan would allow it to declare a state of emergency, increasing the supply of healthcare workers including licensed professionals from other states and countries, as well as retired nurses.

Hochul said the state was also considering using National Guard officers with medical training to keep hospitals and other medical facilities adequately staffed. About 16 percent of the state's 450,000 hospital staff, or about 72,000 workers, have not been fully vaccinated, the governor's office said.

The plan comes amid a broader debate between state leaders and the federal government, which is pushing for mandatory COVID-19 vaccines to help fight the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus.

Health workers oppose the COVID-19 vaccination requirement, with some objecting on religious grounds. Hochul himself attended services at a large church in New York City, asking the congregation to help promote the vaccine.

"I want you to be my 'messenger'. I want you to come out and talk about it and say, we owe each other something," Hochul told the congregation at the Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn, citing Reuters Sept. 27.

"Jesus taught us to love each other and how you show that love, but to care enough for one another to say, please get the vaccine because I love you and I want you to live."

Health workers fired for refusing to be vaccinated will not be eligible for unemployment insurance, unless they can provide a medical accommodation request approved by a doctor, Hochul's office said.

It was not immediately clear how the pending legal case regarding the religious exemption would apply to the state's plans to continue and lay off unvaccinated health workers.

A federal judge in Albany has temporarily ordered New York state officials to allow a religious exemption for the state-imposed vaccine mandate on healthcare workers, imposed by former Governor Andrew Cuomo and taking effect Monday.

The requirement for New York City teachers and school staff to get vaccinated was temporarily blocked by a US appeals court just days before it went into effect. A trial is set for Wednesday.

The highly contagious Delta variant has driven a spike in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in the United States that peaked in early September and has since fallen, according to a Reuters tally. Deaths, a lagging indicator, continue to rise with the country reporting about 2,000 lives lost on average a day over the past week, mostly in the unvaccinated.

While cases nationwide are down about 25 percent from their fall peak, the increase in new infections in New York has recently fallen, according to a Reuters tally.

In an effort to better protect those most vulnerable, the CDC on Friday endorsed injections of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, a COVID-19 vaccine for Americans 65 and older, adults with underlying medical conditions, and adults with any health status. tall one. occupational risks and institutional arrangements.

On Sunday, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky explains who should qualify for a booster shot based on their work in a high-risk environment.

"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 workers, our teachers, our grocery workers, our public transportation employees," he said.

Walensky decided to include more people than was recommended Thursday by a group of outside expert advisors to the agency. The CDC director is under no obligation to follow the advice of the panel.