Intermountain requires employees to be vaccinated by Feb. 9, 2022

FILE PHOTO - Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine or mRNA-1273 is a COVID-19 vaccine developed by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, and Moderna. Photo by Mufid Majnun

Intermountain Healthcare announced Wednesday that in order to comply with federal rules it will require its caregivers to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

Speaking to a mid-morning press briefing via Zoom, Dr. Mark Briesacher, chief physician executive for Intermountain, said employees who are unvaccinated by Feb. 9 will be dismissed.

He explained the process for Intermountain Healthcare caregivers.

“We’re starting from a really good place. Over 75 percent of Intermountain caregivers are fully vaccinated and almost 85 percent have started the vaccination process,” Dr. Briesacher stated. “We care deeply about everyone who works in healthcare and we’ve come up with an approach that is really focused on listening, on understanding questions, answering those questions and helping people through the decision-making process.”

Dr. Briesacher said the company’s caregivers have been asked to submit any medical and religious exemptions by Dec. 1.

“We’ve created a flow that is electronic in nature so that the exemption forms can be completed,” Dr. Briesacher continued. “They also can be printed off and they can work with their medical providers for their medical exemptions, then they themselves can attest to the religious exemptions.”

Since Tuesday, 22 more Utahns died of COVID-19, including two Box Elder County men — one 65-84 years of age and one older than 85 — and two Cache County women, both 65-84 years old. From the start of the pandemic the lives of 3,181 Utahns have been lost to the virus, including 157 in Cache, Box Elder and Rich counties.

The Utah Department of Health (UDOH) reported 2,068 new positive cases of coronavirus Wednesday, 137 of those in northern Utah. Including Wednesday’s totals, there have been 546,213 positive cases in Utah.

The total northern Utah case count has reached 30,345 and 28,703 northern Utahns are listed as totally recovered while 1,400 in the district have been hospitalized during the pandemic.

Idaho’s Wednesday COVID update indicates 3,473 coronavirus deaths and the new total of confirmed COVID-19 cases is 287,679 statewide. New case counts in the three southeast Idaho counties include 1,570 total positives in Franklin County, 682 in Bear Lake County and 534 in Oneida County.

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3 Comments

  • Shauna October 28, 2021 at 8:48 pm Reply

    I can’t believe that this country and especially corporations like Intermountain Healthcare are doing this to employees that have given their all over the years for them and will fire them for deciding for themselves that the vaccine isn’t for them. Many of them have already had Covid and they are expected to get vaccinated when they have natural immunity. The government says people have the right to choose an abortion, but not about injecting a substance into their bodies that they don’t know what the long term affects will be. They should stand up for their employees and not force them to decide if they want to work or not. Next thing is they will refuse to treat anyone that isn’t vaccinated. People have many reasons not to be vaccinated and they shouldn’t have to defend themselves.

    • Stan October 29, 2021 at 10:25 am Reply

      People that don’t believe in science shouldn’t work in healthcare.

  • Ttunac October 30, 2021 at 12:43 am Reply

    If it was science the pharmaceutical companies wouldn’t be hiding behind legal immunity granted by the government.

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