August 6, 2021 – The California Department of Public Health issued an order August 5 requiring workers in healthcare to be vaccinated.
The California health department also issued an order directing hospitals, skilled nursing facilities and intermediate care facilities to verify that visitors are fully vaccinated, or to verify documentation of a negative coronavirus test for unvaccinated or partially vaccinated visitors.
The order comes as California is seeing the fastest increase in new virus cases since the start of the pandemic, averaging 18.3 new cases per 100,000 people a day. Most of the state’s new infections are caused by the delta variant, a more contagious version of the coronavirus that the state says “may cause more severe illness.”
The order requires workers to be fully vaccinated or receive their second shot by September 30.
The order applies to workers in hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, intermediate care facilities, ambulatory surgery centers and in most other healthcare settings.
Workers may only be exempt from the vaccination requirement if they are granted an exemption for religious beliefs or qualifying medical reasons.