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Kaiser Permanente announced on Tuesday that 2,200 employees are now on unpaid administrative leave after failing to meet the September 30th deadline to get vaccinated against Covid-19. That number represents only 1% of the entire 216,000 person workforce of the healthcare provider. Of those thousands now on leave, it is unclear how many of them are from California where most of the company's workforce is present. Another deadline has been set for those now on leave to get vaccinated by December 1st to get the vaccine in order to be able to return to work.
Kaiser Permanente spokesperson Karl Sonkin gave a statement to the San Francisco Chronicle: “We hope none of our employees will choose to leave their jobs rather than be vaccinated, but we won’t know with certainty until then. We will continue to work with this group of employees to allay concerns and educate them about the vaccines, their benefits, and risks.”