Today is the day that Connecticut’s long-term workers and other workers employed by the state are required to comply with a COVID-19 vaccine mandate or agree to regular testing. The deadline was postponed from Sept. 27 to allow state officials to continue to work through the thousands of forms that were submitted to the state to provide information on workers’ vaccination status.
Gov. Ned Lamont (D) said in a press conference Wednesday that he expected a big surge in 11th-hour vaccinations among workers employed by the state ahead of the deadline.
“I am very pleased looking at, for example, New York, not to mention Connecticut, the fact we have this mandate out there for this vaccination — what you saw in New York, the rush of people at the end of the day realizing getting vaccinated is the right thing to do,” Lamont said. “What that has meant in terms of public health, what that meant in terms of their hospitals, what that meant in terms of their nursing homes — and I think we’ll be seeing that in the great state of Connecticut.”
As of Thursday, one-fourth of workers employed by the state were not yet in compliance with the vaccination or testing requirement, meaning they had not provided proof of vaccination or started weekly testing, according to Lamont’s office, but that number had dropped by approximately 2,000 employees over the previous two days.
“I continue to remain optimistic that our employees will submit their testing and vaccination information quickly,” Lamont said.
Still, the governor is preparing for staffing shortages once that deadline passes just before midnight, including potential Connecticut National Guard activations should agencies that provide critical health and safety services need assistance. Members of the National Guard could be deployed under state active duty to step in “until replacement employees can be hired or non-compliant employees come into compliance,” according to Lamonts’ office.
The Nutmeg State mandate includes a religious exemption, which has been lacking in New York’s executive order and has the Empire State embroiled in legal battles. New York must allow for religious exemption in its vaccine mandate, at least for now, according to a three-judge ruling of the federal appeals court in Manhattan on Thursday. The court issued a temporary order to allow for religious objections while it considers whether the mandate as a whole is legal, Bloomberg reported. The court will hear arguments on that case Oct. 14.
