Centre County to require government employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 or tested weekly
Employees of the Centre County government will be required to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 or be tested weekly effective Jan. 31.
Centre County Commissioners voted 2-1 to implement the policy during their meeting Thursday morning. Commissioners Mark Higgins and Michael Pipe voted for the policy, Commissioner Steve Dershem was opposed.
Pipe said the board met with local health care leaders and discussed the policy. He noted that Penn State, the top employer in the county, essentially has this same policy for employees and students.
“It’s really great to see that they’ve had a very similar policy in place that has enabled them to succeed and keep the students here. So hopefully, as we go into the future, they will be successful and I hope very much for his policy, we are successful as well,” Pipe said.
Dershem had a much different stance.
“I don’t support this and I think medically speaking it has a minimal result, significant expense and effectively punishes the unvaccinated. And I still think the vaccinated can transmit, and contract and transmit the virus so I think it’s ... I just don’t support it. I don’t think it’s something that really makes sense at this point. I think the omicron thing will burn out before we even begin this process,” Dershem said.
During a previous meeting, he said the county should either test everyone or no one, or that temperature checks should be done daily of everyone coming into the county building.
The commissioners have been discussing the policy for its approximately 550 employees for about a month and have made minor adjustments along the way, including pushing back the start date to the end of the month.
How will the COVID-19 policy work?
The county’s definition of “fully vaccinated” follows the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention definition, which currently states a person is considered fully vaccinated two weeks after completion of a two-dose mRNA series or one dose of Janssen vaccine. If the CDC were to change that definition in the future (to include a booster shot, for example), the county’s definition would change too.
An FAQ about the policy will be provided to county employees, Kristen Simkins, director of the county’s human resources, said. She said those who are not fully vaccinated would be required to be tested once every calendar week; exceptions can be granted on a case by case basis through human resources.
If someone does test positive, they would be excluded from the weekly testing for 90 days, as it will most likely continue to come back positive, Pipe said, because it will detect the antibodies.
With another vote of 2-1, commissioners also approved purchasing rapid antigen test kits from Penn State; the cost will not exceed $30,200. It will include 3,075 rapid antigen test kits. Dershem voted against the motion.
“It’s a good resource and I think we’re being offered these tests at a competitive price. And we would use these in combination with a third party vendor to actually administer the test. We will not have our own employees administering the test to other employees, we will have an outside, third-party source doing that for us,” Margaret Gray, county administrator, said.
Employees will need to provide a copy of their vaccination card to the county so they know who will be required to be tested. Commissioners previously approved a $26,055 contract with Qualtrics, LLC to provide EmployeeXM, a software solution for employee vaccination and testing status management. The contract runs from Dec. 8, 2021 through Dec. 7, 2022. Dershem voted against that contract as well.
Are changes to the masking policy next?
The county’s masking policy, which requires the masking of employees and visitors in all county facilities, was also discussed during Thursday’s meeting. Officials discussed what type of mask should be required, as cloth masks don’t work as well as surgical, KN95 or N95 masks. Gray said they are looking into purchasing surgical and N95 masks that could be provided to employees. Pipe suggested looking into KN95 masks, as well.
“The feedback we received from the medical professionals is that omicron is highly contagious. Surgical, KN95s, N95s still have a chance at stopping it. A cloth mask, not so much,” Higgins said.
The potential change will be voted on during a future meeting.
