“We’re extending that with an executive order today – it’s not just nurses in nursing homes, but it’s all state employees who work in any of our hospital facilities…That’s a vaccine mandate. You don’t test out of that.”
Ned Lamont, Aug 19, 2021The governor said there will also be a vaccine mandate, effective Sept 27, for all state employees: K-12 teachers and staff and early childhood teachers and staff.
There are 300 vaccination sites all over the state for convenience.
“The vaccines work.They’re safe. Hundreds of millions have been administered,” he said. “I want CT to take the lead in terms of employees getting vaccinated.”
He listed companies that have a vaccine mandate.
“Hats off to Cigna, hospitals across the state, universities, Facebook, Google, Lyft, Uber, Delta and United Airlines.”
As for schools, Lamont noted that all students in K-12 in Connecticut will be required to wear a mask in the fall.
“In person classroom education, there’s no substitute for it….We’re not Mississippi,” he said.
Lamont explained his reasoning for vaccine mandates.
“I see what’s going on in Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Alaska and Israel. I thought the more people vaccinated, the less targets there are for Delta or the next generation of variant to find a willing receptacle. Let’s face it, we tried a lot of incentives but he vaccinations weren’t going up the way it should.”
The mandate applies to both public and private schools.
Deirdre Gifford, Acting Commissioner of the Department of Public Health, said that all vaccine mandates have an accommodation for medical exemption or for a “sincerely held religious belief.”
“Typically, a provider would need to document the medical reason why a person could not be vaccinated.”
Paul Mounds, chief of staff for the Governors office, said that, as an incentive, the state of CT has offered comp time to state employees for each shot they go take. That was a negotiated with the state employees union.
Lamont said about 75% of CT teachers have been vaccinated.
Josh Geballe, CT’s chief operating officer, said if a teacher or state employee refuses to be vaccinated they will not be permitted in the state facility.
“From there, the discipline will be determined through the employee contracts ad details worked out through the collective bargaining process with state employee unions. For K-12 education and early childhood, that will be determined and worked out between those employers as well,” Lamont said.
There will be no remote learning prior to the 2022-2023 school year. A reporter said she was hearing from parents that they had no choice but to home school or pay for a for-profit online school.
Lamont said districts are working individually to accommodate students who are in quarantine or immunocomprised.
Deirdre Gifford said some districts are talking about tutorial support, or synchronous or asynchronous learning.
Lamont said the state had contracted for a number of online learning modules, broken down by grade.
But, he said, “If you can, go to class. Go to school. We don’t want a dual education system out there.”
As of this moment, the vaccine mandate for state employees are set to expire Sept 30, when the Governor’s emergency authority expires.
After several questions from reporters about religious exemptions and “conscientious objectors,” Lamont said, “I would say, broadly speaking, we can talk about, ‘I refuse to wear a mask. My kid refuses to wear a mask. I want a bigger exemption so I don’t have to be vaccinated. I don’t think I have to be tested.’ – the wider you cast this net, the bigger the loophole it is, the more dangerous it is for our community, the more dangerous it is for allowing our kids to get back to school safely and allowing you to get back to work safely.”
At the close, Lamont said, “Look, I’m not eager to do this. We’re doing everything we can to keep us safe…We’ve got the masks, we’ve got the vaccines, we’ve got the capacity and we have over 80% of our adults vaccinated. Let’s build on that. That’s what gets our kids into schools safely.”