A lawsuit was filed this year against a federal contractor in Oak Ridge that terminated an employee after she refused to get a COVID-19 vaccine.
In her lawsuit, the former employee argued that it is illegal under state law to compel her to provide proof of vaccination if she objects to the vaccine.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory will require all staff members to have a current COVID-19 vaccination by October 15, and new employees will be required to provide proof that they have been vaccinated.
UT-Battelle LLC, which manages the laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy, decided to require vaccinations after the Food and Drug Administration approved the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine on Monday, August 23.
After more than seven months, about 43 percent of people are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 in Anderson County–lower than the national average–and the number of daily vaccinations remains far below the peak this spring, according to state data.
The largest increase in vaccinations in Anderson County was between about late February and mid-May. There were eight days with about 900 vaccinations or more during that time period and three days in April with more than 1,000 vaccinations, according to data from the Tennessee Department of Health. The peak was 1,256 vaccinations on April 10.
Now, though, vaccinations are in the range of about 100 per day, with all peaks below 200. At that rate, it could take months, maybe more than a year, to approach a vaccination rate of 70 percent or higher.
The number of new vaccine recipients can vary widely each day, but there does appear to be an increase in the number of new recipients as the new daily case rate rises again in Anderson County.
[Read more…]Oak Ridge Schools and Anderson County Health Department will have a vaccine clinic for students 12 and older in June.
The vaccine clinic will be in Wildcat Arena at Oak Ridge High School on June 4 and 25. It will feature the two-dose Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, with the first shot on Friday, June 4, and the second on Friday, June 25. People are considered fully vaccinated two weeks after the second dose.
The vaccine clinic will begin at 9 a.m. both days.
[Read more…]Covenant Health, which includes Methodist Medical Center of Oak Ridge, received its first shipment of the first approved COVID-19 vaccine in the United States on Thursday.
It’s the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. That’s a new type of vaccine, a messenger RNA, or mRNA, vaccine. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved an emergency use authorization for the vaccine on Friday for patients 16 years old and older.
The first round of the vaccine will be offered to Covenant Health employees working in environments that are considered high risk or high exposure to COVID-19.
Receiving the vaccine is voluntary for staff, Covenant Health said in an announcement Thursday. The vaccine will be administered on a planned schedule at all Covenant Health acute care facilities. The vaccine will also be available for home health employees and employees who work in long-term care facilities, the announcement said.
[Read more…]