Why UPMC hasn’t required vaccinations among employees

PITTSBURGH — UPMC, the largest health system in Pennsylvania and the commonwealth’s largest nongovernmental employer, continues to consider whether to require its 93,000 employees to be vaccinated against Covid-19.

While some hospitals and health systems in the country have mandated the vaccine, local ones haven’t taken that step, at least while the Covid-19 vaccines remain in emergency use approval.

Dr. Graham Snyder, UPMC’s medical director of infection prevention and hospital epidemiology, said the conversations about the vaccine and other prevention measures go on internally on a daily basis. But there has been no decision on whether to make it required.

“It doesn’t mean we won’t mandate vaccine in the future,” Snyder said during a news conference Tuesday, one of dozens of briefings the health system has done in the past year and a half solely focused on the Covid-19 pandemic. UPMC several years ago required the flu vaccination for its employees.

Read more from our partners at The Pittsburgh Business Times.

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