Houston hospital is first among peers to require staff vaccines

The Houston Methodist hospital system in Texas will soon require its 26,000 employees get the COVID-19 vaccine, in what a spokeswoman said appears to be the first such move by a large U.S. hospital system.

The development was shared in an email chief executive officer Marc Boom sent to managers on Wednesday. It gave them until mid-April to get “at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine or get an approved exemption.” No deadline for all employees was given in the email.

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About 95% of management and all executives have received vaccines to date, compared with about 83% of employees, including everyone from doctors and nurses to cafeteria workers, according to Boom’s email. Religious and medical exemptions will be allowed in “very rare cases,” according to a document outlining frequently asked questions that was linked in the email.

“As part of Houston Methodist management, we must lead by example and get vaccinated ourselves,” Boom wrote. “Thank you for getting vaccinated and thank you for leading your staff to make the right decision to help protect our patients.”

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Whether to mandate coronavirus shots is a question a broad swathe of employers are grappling with. Houston Methodist’s move comes at a time when experts say it’s not clear whether COVID-19 vaccines can, or should, be mandated. A central issue is that the shots now available have only received emergency-use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and not a standard approval, a lengthier and more comprehensive process.