New government figures showed that almost a quarter of California's hospital workers still have not been fully vaccinated against COVID-19. They have given a variety of reasons for not yet getting their jabs.
Burbank Emergency Room Dr. Angelique Campen told KNX that many hospital workers think they're protected because they were among the first to be exposed.
“People felt that they still had natural immunity. I think a lot of the people who had not gotten vaccinated are because they already had COVID,” she said.
Campen said, however, research has shown it is possible to get COVID-19 again.
“It was thought previously that once you were infected and had natural immunity that you couldn’t get it again. But, unfortunately, we are seeing now that even if you’ve had it before you can get it again," she said.
"Vaccination is still recommended for people who have already had it once.”
Federal data showed the numbers vary widely by location -- from more than 40 percent at the Redlands Community Hospital, to less than 2 percent at others including the Saddleback Medical Center in Laguna Hills and the Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley.
While vaccination of staff at some hospitals lag, the number of COVID-19 cases have continued to increase dramatically across the United States. In Southern California, unvaccinated patients have expressed disbelief when told they have COVID-19.
It's a harsh dose of reality for those who've chosen to not get the vaccine despite the vaccine’s availability to all adults for the past several months.
Gov. Gavin Newsom announced last Monday that state employees and health care workers would be required to get vaccinated or show weekly negative COVID-19 tests.
Karen Mulligan, a fellow at the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and& Economics, called vaccination mandates the "right move" in a statement.
“If employers want to operate reliable in-person workplaces and attract customers, they will have to embrace a solution that the government has so far shied away from: vaccine mandates."
"Higher education and health care providers are already leading the way,” according to Mulligan.
The American Medical Association and the American Nurses Association signed a joint statement supporting vaccination mandates for health care workers. The statement was also signed by about 60 other medical groups.
“Vaccination is the primary way to put the pandemic behind us and avoid the return of
stringent public health measures,” said the statement.
The statement acknowledged that some employees cannot receive the vaccine for medical reasons.
“While we recognize some workers cannot be vaccinated because of identified medical reasons and should be exempted from a mandate, they constitute a small minority of all workers,” said the statement.
The associations recommended that employers consider exceptions on a case-by-case basis.