All K-12 Teachers, State Workers Ordered To Get COVID-19 Vaccine

CONNECTICUT — Add all kindergarten through grade 12 teachers, school staff and early childhood care workers to the list of Connecticut residents who must be vaccinated in the next few weeks.

The public and private school workers join Connecticut state employees who must either get vaccinated or agree to weekly testing, under an executive order Gov. Ned Lamont issued Thursday.

The governor announced the mandate during a news conference the same day, along with the report of 23 more coronavirus-associated deaths in the state since last week.

The workers must receive their first jab by Sept. 27, Lamont said. By that date, employees need to either have received their second dose as well, or have scheduled an appointment for their second dose.

Employees can opt out of vaccination by submitting to weekly COVID-19 testing.

"That's a lousy solution, Lamont said. "The best solution is for everyone to get vaccinated." There are currently 300 vaccination sites available statewide, according to the governor.

The state will allow exemptions supported by a medical provider, or for "sincerely held religious beliefs."

"Typically the provider would need to document the medical reason why a person couldn't be vaccinated. There aren't too many," said Dr. Deidre Gifford, senior advisor to the governor for Health and Human Services, and acting Connecticut Department of Public Health commissioner. She cited an allergic reaction to the vaccine as one.

Details regarding the religious belief exemption would "be worked out between the employer and the employee," according to Gifford.

State Chief Operating Officer Josh Geballe said that employees who have not been vaccinated, tested, nor formally exempted risk being barred from the state facility where they are employed.

Lamont estimated that 75 percent of teachers in the state have already been vaccinated.

The state already has a vaccine mandate for about 8,000 state employees in health care and the prisons. Nursing home workers do not have the option of testing to avoid vaccination.

The State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition issued a statement on their website:

"Courts have upheld employer rights to mandate vaccination. The state of Connecticut is required to negotiate with their employees’ unions over the details and impacts of the EO and the Lamont Administration has acknowledged its obligation to do so... We recognize that under state and federal law, the employer has the right to create such mandates, subject to the duty to bargain its impact on employees, and we will continue to fight for safety in the workplace and the rights of each and every individual employee."

House Republican Leader Vincent Candelora and Senate Republican Leader Kevin Kelly on Thursday issued the following statement regarding Lamont’s planned executive order mandating COVID-19 vaccination for most state employees as well as K-12 teachers and staff:

“We fear the governor may have opened a can of worms by issuing this executive order that will surely trigger many immediately unanswerable questions from workers and entities impacted by it—from how much it will cost employees who instead choose weekly testing to the scope of disciplinary action faced by those who fail to comply with this mandate altogether. Union leaders now sit in pole position to fill in many of those blanks, and we hope the governor’s administration during its conversations with state employee union negotiators will remain firm if talks extend beyond subjects such as disciplinary options and access to testing and vaccines.”

The vaccination mandates directed by Lamont will end on Sept. 30 when his emergency powers expire, unless either the mandates, or the governor's powers, are extended by the state legislature.