NEW YORK (WCBS 880) -- Mount Sinai Health System announced Thursday that it would require all faculty and staff to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
Hospital workers will be required to get their first shot of the vaccine by Monday, Sept. 13, with few exceptions. Employees subject to the mandate who don’t get the shot risk termination, officials said.
Leaders of the city’s largest health system made the decision amid an increase in cases caused by the delta variant of the coronavirus, and as an added measure to protect faculty and staff.
The mandate applies to employees at all Mount Sinai locations, including hospital, ambulatory, academic, corporate and other sites, officials said.
In an internal message to staff, Kenneth L. Davis, the president and CEO of Mount Sinai Health System, wrote, “Given the increased incidence and the rapid spread of the delta variant, we will be making COVID-19 vaccination mandatory for all faculty and staff, with limited exceptions for religious and medical reasons, and excluding employees who work fully remotely.”
“Those who do not get the shot and do not receive a medical or religious exemption will be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination,” Davis wrote.
He said Mount Sinai will continue to implement its vaccine-or-testing protocol. Starting in September, faculty and staff who receive a medical or religious exemption from the vaccine mandate will have to be tested for COVID-19 weekly.
Davis said the system has a responsibility to “the communities we serve.”
“Vaccines are simply the best protection we have against this virus, and our patients deserve the best,” he wrote to staff.
In his message, Davis thanked employees who were already vaccinated. He said the system was announcing the mandate early to allow the unvaccinated “more time to learn, look at the data, and become comfortable with getting vaccinated.”
He noted that the Food and Drug Administration is expected to grant full approval to at least one of the COVID-19 vaccines “very soon.”
Mount Sinai is the latest health system in the New York area to mandate the vaccine.
Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a vaccine mandate last month for all staffers working at city-run hospitals and health clinics—an order impacting roughly 42,000 workers.
And in June, New York-Presbyterian hospital system said it would require all of its 48,000 employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 unless they have a valid exemption. Northwell Health, the state's largest healthcare provider, said it would mandate the vaccine for new employees.
A spokesperson for NYU Langone Health told Politico last month that it plans to issue a mandate after the FDA gives full approval to a vaccine.
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