Kaiser Permanente, which is based in California and is one of the nation’s largest nonprofit health plans, announced its vaccination requirement on Aug. 2, when 78 percent of its work force had already been inoculated. A spokesman said Wednesday that the level had risen to more than 92 percent.
Still, about 1 percent of Kaiser’s work force across the country — or approximately 2,200 workers — were put on unpaid administrative leave because they had not met the vaccine requirement, the spokesman said. They have until Dec. 1 to get vaccinated to be able to return to work. “We hope none of our employees will choose to leave their jobs rather than be vaccinated, but we won’t know with certainty until then,” he said.
The Henry Ford Health System required its employees to comply with its vaccination requirement by last Friday. The system announced on Tuesday that 99 percent of its 33,000 employees had been fully vaccinated, were soon to get their second dose or had received medical or religious exemptions.
But about 400 employees have resigned over the requirement, and new hires have already made up for the loss, officials said.
At Henry Ford, Bob Riney, president of health care operations and chief operating officer, said those who had left the company can reapply once they are inoculated.