CHAPTER 25

• Jurisdiction: United States

CHAPTER 25 CAN VACCINATION BE COMPELLED BY THE PATIENT'S EMPLOYER?

Yes, but . . . Future litigation will be inevitable. Turn briefly to the case of the employee who resists taking a vaccine, where their employer makes vaccination mandatory for positions such as raw meat cutter or surgical nurse. Watch this corner of the vaccine issue for extensive litigation to come.

Many employers that provide health coverage will pay for their workers to receive an effective vaccine. Subsidies for vaccination on employer health insurance are very probable. The sad experience of COVID-19 fatalities among U.S. meat workers in summer 2020 was a highly visible stimulus for the cleaning and face-masking of large, intensely steamy work sites, along with retrofitting of the air ventilation systems to reduce viral transmission. Workers compensation claims for long-term harm from COVID-19 will probably require that the worker's medical expert testify that the workplace was the source of this very asymptomatic viral intake.

So, yes, vaccine use can lawfully be required for workers in many "high-touch" roles such as the healthcare workplace. We can expect to observe many months of appellate...