Pasadena, California announced that all city employees will be required to be inoculated for COVID-19 on Monday. The move will make the city the first in Southern California to mandate that city workers get vaccinated.
“The City of Pasadena announced at their City Council meeting tonight that the City Manager is implementing a policy to require mandatory vaccinations for their over 2,000 employees,” remarked Public Information Officer Lisa Derderian.
While 60% of employees have attested to getting vaccinated, Derderian said the “mandatory policy is the right thing to do to protect employees who at times spend more hours at work than home,” with positive cases on the rise due to the Delta variant.
“The policy will be effective when there is official FDA approval for the vaccines,” she continued. “The City of Pasadena would be the first to initiate this policy in Southern California and the UC System recently announced they have a similar mandate.”
Similarly, San Francisco gave their city employees a notice on June 28, that they had 30 days to prove that they got the jab. Those who don’t comply face disciplinary action and/or termination, but some are able to request exemptions for religious beliefs or medical conditions.
Currently 80% of Pasadena’s residents over 12 years old have been vaccinated, but that didn’t stop the city from reinstating an indoor mask rule on Monday that would be effective for all, regardless of vaccine status.
Though the city’s infection rates were lower than LA County’s last week, due to the increase over the weekend, Pasadena now “meets the CDC’s definition of “substantial transmission” of COVID-19,” according to their official Twitter page.
I smell some bigtime law suits in their future!