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Mini Review | DOI: https://doi.org/10.31579/2639-4162/054
1 Council for Medical Schemes, Policy Research and Monitoring, South Africa
*Corresponding Author: Michael Mncedisi Willie, Council for Medical Schemes, Policy Research and Monitoring, South Africa.
Citation: Michael Mncedisi Willie (2022). Covid-19 Mandatory Vaccination in the Workplace- Key Considerations. J. General medicine and Clinical Practice. 5(1); DOI:10.31579/2639-4162/054
Copyright: © 2022 Michael Mncedisi Willie, This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Received: 22 October 2021 | Accepted: 23 December 2021 | Published: 03 January 2022
Keywords: Covid-19
The COVID-19 epidemic has adversely affected health systems globally, with some on the verge of collapse, as countries experienced the second wave of the pandemic. Millions of people have died from the pandemic, particularly the elderly and co-morbidities. COVID-19 infections have declined, with South African officially out of the third wave as of October
The COVID-19 epidemic has adversely affected health systems globally, with some on the verge of collapse, as countries experienced the second wave of the pandemic. Millions of people have died from the pandemic, particularly the elderly and co-morbidities. COVID-19 infections have declined, with South African officially out of the third wave as of October. The country recorded more than 2,9 million lives infected, nearly 89,000 deaths, and just over 17.6% percent of the population fully vaccinated as of 15 October 2021.
Herd immunity is of the strategies that all countries across the globe are an employee. As a result, a massive drive towards vaccinating the population is evident. Vaccine hesitancies remain a challenge, with a proportion of the population still hesitant to the vaccines. With lock alert level relaxed to alert level one as of October 2021, companies are employing return to office strategies with the economy opening. Such strategies coupled with employing risk mitigation measures such as enforcing workplace mandatory vaccine policies. Various countries such as Britain, Greece, Indonesia, Italy,
have introduced mandatory vaccinations for health workers and certain government workers
A survey conducted by Willie and Skosana on the COVID-19 readiness survey assessed the effect of the employer in getting employees inoculated (Willie and Skosana, 2021). Fifty-eight percent of participants answered that they would accept the COVID-19 vaccine if their employer would recommend it, whilst 20% gave a neutral/no opinion response. Less than ten percent, completely disagreed that they would accept the COVID-19 vaccine if their employer recommended it. Thus, indicating that even if such mandatory policies were to be employed, there would be residual of employees would not fully accept vaccine in the workplace. One of the considerations employers need to employ is the risk assessment framework, coupled with ethical considerations.
Secondary to this is to identify areas with a high hesitancy rate and optimise on these. Willie and Skosana, in their survey, assessed COVID-19 vaccine readiness. The analysis also considered various sectors of the economy (Willie & Skosana, 2021). The study found a high hesitancy level in Chemical, Petrochemical, Oil & Gas, Health, Fitness, Medical & Optometry R&D, Science & Scientific Research sectors as depicted in Figure 1.
Figure 2 above showed that the textile industry had a lower acceptance level of the vaccine if were recommended by the employer. Thus, indicating this industry has a high vaccine acceptancy. A full risk assessment must be considered before implementing or adapting a workplace vaccine policy, considering the employer’s operational requirements. (Gibson, 202). The employer (s) should indicate whether it intends to implement a mandatory vaccination policy.
Other key considerations include:
Other guidelines on how to approach mandatory vaccination in the workplace include (Truter, 2021):
(a)The obligation to be vaccinated
(b)The right to object on medical or constitutional grounds
(c)The opportunity to consult with representatives
Clearly Auctoresonline and particularly Psychology and Mental Health Care Journal is dedicated to improving health care services for individuals and populations. The editorial boards' ability to efficiently recognize and share the global importance of health literacy with a variety of stakeholders. Auctoresonline publishing platform can be used to facilitate of optimal client-based services and should be added to health care professionals' repertoire of evidence-based health care resources.
