NY Post: The nearly 20 percent of workers at hospitals and nursing homes who refuse to get vaccinated against COVID-19 will be replaced — potentially by foreigners — once the state’s mandate , Gov. Kathy Hochul said Wednesday.
Hochul told reporters in Rochester that she hoped that all unvaccinated employees would meet Monday’s deadline.
“To those who won’t, we’ll be replacing people. And I have a plan that’s going to be announced very shortly,” she said.
“We’ve identified a whole range of opportunities we have to help supplement them.”
Hochul said state officials were “working closely with various hospital systems to find out where we can get other individuals to come in and supplement places like nursing homes.”
“We’re also reaching out to the Department of State to find out about visas for foreign workers, on a limited basis, to bring more nurses over here,” she said.
As of Sept. 15, 19 percent of New York’s hospital workers remained unvaccinated, according to state Health Department figures.
For nursing homes, the number was 18 percent as of Wednesday.
After Monday, employers can fire unvaccinated workers who don’t have a “valid medical exemption” for getting the shots.
Employees who are also off the hook until at least Oct. 12, due to a temporary restraining order issued by a Utica federal judge after 17 health care workers filed a religious-freedom suit over the mandate.
The plaintiffs, almost all of them Catholic, oppose the available vaccines on grounds that they all “employ aborted fetus cell lines in their testing, development, or production.”
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops has said it’s OK for Catholics “to receive a vaccine that uses ********-derived cell lines if there are no other available vaccines comparable in safety and efficacy with no connection to ********.”
Pope Francis has also “an act of love.”
Hochul told reporters in Rochester that she hoped that all unvaccinated employees would meet Monday’s deadline.
“To those who won’t, we’ll be replacing people. And I have a plan that’s going to be announced very shortly,” she said.
“We’ve identified a whole range of opportunities we have to help supplement them.”
Hochul said state officials were “working closely with various hospital systems to find out where we can get other individuals to come in and supplement places like nursing homes.”
“We’re also reaching out to the Department of State to find out about visas for foreign workers, on a limited basis, to bring more nurses over here,” she said.
As of Sept. 15, 19 percent of New York’s hospital workers remained unvaccinated, according to state Health Department figures.
For nursing homes, the number was 18 percent as of Wednesday.
After Monday, employers can fire unvaccinated workers who don’t have a “valid medical exemption” for getting the shots.
Employees who are also off the hook until at least Oct. 12, due to a temporary restraining order issued by a Utica federal judge after 17 health care workers filed a religious-freedom suit over the mandate.
The plaintiffs, almost all of them Catholic, oppose the available vaccines on grounds that they all “employ aborted fetus cell lines in their testing, development, or production.”
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops has said it’s OK for Catholics “to receive a vaccine that uses ********-derived cell lines if there are no other available vaccines comparable in safety and efficacy with no connection to ********.”
Pope Francis has also “an act of love.”
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