Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald announced Wednesday that COVID-19 vaccinations will be required for all county employees in the executive branch by Dec. 1.
Executive branch employees who do not show proof of their vaccination to management by that date will face termination, according to a statement released by Mr. Fitzgerald’s office.
According to a spokeswoman for the county, there are approximately 5,000 employees in the executive branch.
“As we continue to see cases of COVID in our county, and different populations being affected than were previously, it is even more important that our workforce be protected so that the public that we serve is protected as well,” Mr. Fitzgerald said. “The CDC, the FDA, the PA Department of Health, the county Health Department and even the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) are in agreement that vaccines are highly effective at protecting most fully vaccinated people against symptoms and severe disease from COVID. This is the right thing for our county and our workforce.”
According to the statement, the executive’s employees have until Dec. 1 to be vaccinated, meaning at least one shot of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine or the second shot of the two-shot Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna vaccine series.
In Allegheny County 69.2% of the 18 and older population are fully vaccinated, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Executive branch employees are being notified of the new policy by supervisors. Whether employees of other county branches will be asked to provide proof of vaccination is up to the leadership of those offices, according to the statement. This includes courts, county council, and the independently elected offices of the Controller, District Attorney, Sheriff, and Treasurer.
County Controller Chelsa Wagner released a statement shortly after Mr. Fitzgerald’s announcement lauding the decision.
“No resident and no County employee deserves to be exposed to the dangerous and highly transmissible Delta variant by a service provider or co-worker employed by Allegheny County,” part of the statement read.
“I thank County Executive Fitzgerald for his leadership in standardizing this science-based, highly effective and reasonable measure for our workers, and urge all County employees to comply as soon as possible, as I will the employees of my own office.”
In the statement, Mr. Fitzgerald’s office added that executive branch employees who still contract COVID will receive 10 days of paid leave, though this benefit is only applicable if the employee has been vaccinated.
Previously, Mr. Fitzgerald had ordered that all new hires must show proof of vaccination.
“Since then we made the decision following along with a lot of other organizations, including the federal government ... that the best way to protect all of us is to be vaccinated,” Mr. Fitzgerald said during the county’s weekly COVID-19 briefing on Wednesday.
The news comes amid high daily case counts of COVID in Allegheny County, which is averaging about 400 new cases per day. There have been 120,573 cases, 8,126 hospitalizations and 2,160 deaths since the pandemic began, according to the county’s health department.
“What we have continued to see, as we come to the end of the month, is the delta variant is a stubborn animal when it comes to infecting people,” Mr. Fitzgerald said.
Wednesday saw an addition of 419 new cases and 12 new deaths, one of which was a person between the ages of 25 and 49.
In September alone, there have been five deaths among that age group, according to Health Director Dr. Debra Bogen.
“These are young folks,” she said. “Why take the chance? The vaccines are effective at preventing serious illness, and they’re free to us.”
A large number — 188 — of Wednesday’s new cases were among those between the ages of 25 and 49, according to health department data.
The other newly reported county deaths occurred in two people between the ages of 50 and 64, and nine people 65 and older.
Dr. Bogen also noted that the county has seen a rise in “preventable hospitalizations and deaths.”
Allegheny County has 355 hospitalized residents with the virus, 61 of whom are requiring mechanical ventilation. Last week, there were about 300 patients in the county and about 2,500 across the state hospitalized for COVID-19.
Statewide, there were 4,570 new cases of the virus reported for Wednesday and 97 new deaths, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Health.
There have been 1,425,048 cases of COVID-19 and 29,323 related deaths in Pennsylvania since the start of the pandemic.
First Published: September 29, 2021, 4:50 p.m.
