LIHU‘E — Business attorneys and a hospital CEO urged employers to mandate COVID-19 vaccines, at a Chamber of Commerce Hawai‘i webinar on Wednesday.
The Chamber does not have an official position on vaccines in the workplace. But its panelists, speaking on their own behalf, were adamant.
“I can tell you this in the simplest way, as it relates to containing the spread of this virus: vaccine is good. No vaccine is bad. It’s that simple,” said Ray Vara, president and CEO of Hawai‘i Pacific Health, which operates Wilcox Medical Center in Lihu‘e.
Novel coronavirus case numbers, buoyed by the delta variant and unvaccinated individuals, are surging throughout the islands and the mainland. The Hawai‘i Department of Health reported 647 new cases on Wednesday, raising the state’s cumulative case count to 52,846 since the start of the pandemic.
Vara’s health care network has mandated its employees get the jab or enter a routine testing protocol beginning Oct. 1.
Jeffrey S. Harris and John L. Knorek, directors of the Torkildson, Katz, Hetherington, Harris &Knorek law firm, commended the policy.
“I think the best answer is for the government to mandate vaccinations,” said Harris.
“If they don’t do that, my recommendation … is that you mandate vaccination for all employees and customers and others who enter,” Harris continued.
If the pandemic’s threat to public health and safety isn’t enough cause for action, business owners should also consider the economic implications of low vaccination rates, Knorek said.
“I hate to say it, but because there is no government mandate, the business community — if it wants to avoid being shut down again — has to take the lead,” Knorek argued. “If we’re going to hit herd immunity in the state, we’re going to have to take steps that basically force our employees to consider getting vaccinated if they want to work.”
Both attorneys claim private employers can make vaccination a requirement in the workplace, with exceptions for legitimate medical conditions and religious beliefs. Declining the shot due to personal feeling, or the federal Food and Drug Administration’s emergency approval of the vaccine, are not valid reasons and could be grounds for termination, they argued.
“The EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission), the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and the U.S. Justice Department all agree … I don’t think there’s any legal barriers to mandating the vaccine and terminating employees who refuse to take it for a non-protected reason,” Knorek said.
Religion is broadly defined under state and federal law, according to the attorneys, who said virtually any personal belief system counts.
However, unlike more stringent disability law, businesses are not obligated to provide more than minimal accommodation to employees who refuse the vaccine on religious grounds, Knorek said.
In all cases, he added, employers should begin a dialogue with workers seeking exemption from a vaccine mandate, to identify a reasonable accommodation.
Vara noted the vaccine’s approval status will soon become a non-issue.
“We would anticipate that the FDA is going to be granting full authorization here within the next couple of weeks,” he said.
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Scott Yunker, reporter, can be reached at 245-0437 or syunker@thegardenisland.com.
Attorneys are now giving medical advice?
No liability for them.
Let the Chamber of Commerce be the first to require proof of vaccination for all its members, especially the lawyers, the mayor and Ray Vera. Then watch the rats leaving the “Ship of State”. Rules for thee but not for me.
I notice one tough question everyone is avoiding, how did the taliban defeated the deadly global covid pandemic without masks, social distancing, lockdowns , hand sanitizing or experimental injections? Might be worth asking….
And just how do you know the incidence of Covid in that country? What is known is that polio runs rampant in Afghanistan because of the lack of said vaccine. Just saying.
Of the 9 people I know who’ve had COVID in the past month, 6 of them were vaccinated.
So, it’s been proven that people with the Vaccine are getting and passing on COVID and yet there are people out there still thinking it’s some kind of miracle drug? What is wrong with you people?
Anyone making a case for vaccination or vaccine compliancy using the phrase “get the jab” …..um no sir. You clearly don’t even value using the proper identification and act of receiving a vaccination. Slang discredits any legitimacy a doctor or lawyer has.
So show me your papers or else? This is fascism and these bigots in the country are trying to force chemicals into our bodies because they are scared of a virus that has a 98.99999 survival rate! Why didn’t we lock down the world over the flus or colds that have killed more people? There is something else going on with this push. The use of fear and condemning one group is as Nazi as you can get. Wake up people
They can’t show you any papers. Accordingly one would need to be a doctor to state something like that. A must vaccine for all employees. But they’re not. If the Wuhan virus is real, which I think it is, more people dying is not justification. What now? Good points. Let’s find out!
Trump lost
Relying to kauai comment….my words exactly!!!!!!..AMEN
This is how the law firm describes itself: “Founded in 1947, Torkildson, Katz, Hetherington, Harris & Knorek, A.L.C. is one of Hawaii’s premier business-oriented law firms. Today, we are a mid-sized law firm that has grown in response to our clients’ needs, serving their interests not only in Hawaii, but also in Asia, the Pacific, and on the U.S. Mainland.” How did any of these lawyers get through law school without a fundamental study of the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights, or the creation thereof? How did these lawyers get through life to this point without an appreciation for HIPA laws? This firm’s position supporting vaccine mandates (and reqs even for customers!) may be good for “business” right now if it includes big pharma and the fear-mongering populous of HI, but if you actually run a business in this state, now’s the time to NOT hire this firm because these folks will ruin your business first; next, the country!
I guess these lawyers don’t believe in freedom. How about the fact that in 2020 and 2021 combined 555 people in Hawaii have died from Covid. The flu killed 642 people in Hawaii in 2017 and 542 people in 2018. Let those numbers sink in. This is all fear. The danger in Covid is the fear the media and politicians are peddling.
We have a choice what to put in our bodies. This threat is no where dangerous enough to mandate that we have to take an experimental vaccine to participate in society. End this madness. Do you remember what the world was like before this sham? Feeedom to live and work and travel. We can chose to return to normal and live with the fact we get sick and die.
They are absolutely right. Vaccines are good and I’ll consider it WHEN THEY HAVE ONE. As for lethal injection, jab whatever you want to call it, lead by example.
Lawyers say if you represent yourself in court, you have a fool for an attorney.
Thinking patients know that if you have a lawyer giving you medical advice you have an unlicensed FOOL as your doctor.