Today's Recap:

• OSHA issued their workplace guidance today detailing the risks of COVID-19 exposure at work and appropriate measures to control the spread.
• Scientists are worried about a new Brazilian variant in part because it’s spread rapidly in areas where COVID has already been super prevalent.
• Moderna is working on a booster, and Pfizer confirmed that their vaccines are less effective against the South African variant. Pfiizers says it could easily design a new vaccine that’s more effective against it, but actually producing it is the hard part. We may see COVID vaccines as bivalent or trivalent (designed to address 2 or 3 strains) just like our current flu shot is now a quadrivalent vaccine.
• Information (and misinformation) surrounding COVID-19 vaccines and pregnant women or women planning on getting pregnant may be leading to increased vaccine hesitancy. The real facts are that no one has studied these vaccines on pregnant women, so we just don’t know. The WHO only recommends vaccination for pregnant women who have high exposure risk, like healthcare workers.
• While the pace of vaccination has increased (now about 1.2 million daily doses), vaccine missteps continue, like a group of college kids bungling vaccine distro in Philly.
• We’ve got some new preliminary data from Novavax’s vaccine, which was almost 90% effective in a UK trial. However, when it came to the South African variant, it proved to be far less effective - only 49%.
• Johnson and Johnson’s vaccine is a single shot, but only has a 72% efficacy rate in the US trials. Still Dr. Fauci says it’s a “value added” in the fight to save lives, and we recommend taking whatever vaccination you can get.
• The Miami Heat will use coronavirus detection dogs to sniff out fans who have the virus.
• A new survey conducted by the Midwest Business Group on Health indicates that more employers are planning to encourage employee vaccinations against COVID-19. More than 70% of employers polled plan to educate their workforce and 56% plan to promote the vaccine to them. If you’re considering this, too, we’ve got a great Vaccine Communication Action Plan on the app to get you started.
• Davis Wright Tremaine, one of the country’s largest law firms, announced they’ll require vaccination for those who return to the office. Anyone who isn’t vaccinated will need to continue to work from home.
• Even smaller employers and independent restaurant groups are considering vaccination incentives.
• Phones across New York started ringing right after Governor Cuomo announced NYC dining could re-open to 25% on Valentine’s Day and weddings for up to 150 people could take place if guests are all tested. Sweethearts started calling for reservations and brides across the state started calling their venues and testing sites.
  

Best Questions:

Can someone who has been exposed to Covid-19 still get vaccinated?

The CDC and ACIP recommend waiting until after the incubation period passes (14 days). It is difficult to determine if vaccine side-effects are side-effects or COVID that was previously incubating. This is especially important when someone has had close contact with someone with COVID. Sometimes other vaccines, like Hep A, are given prophylactically post- exposure.  There is no data supporting that current COVID-19 vaccines are effective to prevent infection post-exposure / close contact.  

Should my employees be tested for COVID (or COVID antibodies) before getting vaccinated?

There is no recommendation for testing prior to vaccination. If you’re actively symptomatic or know you’re positive, or if you’re exposed (see the question above) you should delay vaccination until you’re out of isolation and any symptoms are resolving. But currently vaccination is still recommended for people who have recovered from COVID, so there’s no need to test for it if you have no symptoms and no exposure, or if you’ve had it and recovered.

Are employees going to need booster doses or annual COVID vaccination?

We don’t know the answer to that yet.  The spread of these new variants lead us to believe that a booster dose or annual vaccination is more and more likely. In that case, you might need a booster shot in a year or two, or it will be more like an annual flu shot.

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We’ve had issues with employees with TB before. What should we know about Tuberculosis  and COVID?

TB appears annually on our top ten list of what you call us about.  Now we’ve seen several cases where someone with confirmed COVID was also found to have latent (and, in at least one case, active) TB in their workups when COVID symptoms persisted.  Anyone receiving the COVID-19 vaccine should defer TB tests for four weeks after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine series if it wasn't done before the 1st COVID-19 vaccine was administered.  Clearly, we may be hearing much more about this as TB continues to circulate.  And anyone suspected to have TB should be tested for it before the COVID vaccine is administered (it can be done at the same time, but the TB test should be first).  Many of your employees who are also healthcare workers are wrestling with their annual TB testing requirements and the impact on vaccination timing.

Best Read:

We’re so encouraged by the news that case counts are down dramatically over the past week or two. But we also need to acknowledge that most viruses are seasonal and spread more in the winter - perhaps because we spend more time indoors or maybe because of something about the virus’ make up. Either way, we need to continue to be vigilant this winter, avoid combining households unless absolutely necessary, mask (or double-mask!), and keep it up until most of the world is vaccinated.

The coronavirus in winter may be worse than scientists thought

Best Laugh:

Reminder: Upcoming Webinar on Wednesday, Feb. 3rd at 3 p.m. ET

Register for our free webinar

To incentivize or not, that is the question at the forefront of every employer’s mind as we continue to navigate the roll-out of the COVID-19 vaccines. In this FREE webinar, you’ll hear from Roslyn Stone, COO of Zero Hour Health and founder of Zedic, Claire Deason, Shareholder at Littler Mendelson Employment Law, and Dr. Monique Foster, leading medical epidemiologist from the US Public Health Service of the CDC. They will discuss the latest updates on employee vaccine incentives, tracking, and, as always, will leave plenty of time for your questions.

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