‘We are doing our part.’ Miami-Dade mayor mandates COVID testing for unvaccinated workers.
With more than 1,500 people hospitalized for COVID-19 in Miami-Dade and the number of new patients growing daily, Mayor Daniella Levine Cava and the top administrator for the county’s public hospital, Jackson Health System, announced new policies on Thursday intended to persuade more of their employees to take the vaccine.
Beginning the week of Aug. 16, Levine Cava said, the county will require weekly COVID testing of all Miami-Dade employees, a workforce of about 29,000 people. Those employees who wish to opt out, she said, can show proof of vaccination.
“This policy that we are announcing today will help ensure we are doing our part to maintain a safe, healthy workplace,” Levine Cava said, “and that county employees are doing our part to prevent the spread of COVID across this community.”
Levine Cava, who informed employees by email on Thursday, also announced a high-profile new hire for Miami-Dade: Jared Moskowitz, the former director of Florida’s Division of Emergency Management who oversaw the state’s pandemic response, including sending protective gear to healthcare workers, rolling out vaccine distribution and setting up testing sites. He will be a special adviser to Miami-Dade on COVID response.
At Jackson Health, which is owned by the county and employs about 13,000 people, CEO Carlos Migoya introduced a carrot-and-stick approach to boost vaccination among the estimated 5,200 employees — about 40% of the workforce — who have not taken the vaccine.
Unvaccinated Jackson workers barred from cafeterias
Unvaccinated workers will be required to wear N-95 respirator masks at all times while indoors at any Jackson facility, which includes hospitals in Miami, North Miami Beach and South Miami-Dade, urgent care centers and community clinics. Those employees are also barred from entering any dining rooms, coffee shops and even the cafeterias.
In addition, unvaccinated employees will not be allowed to remove their masks to eat or drink anywhere indoors at Jackson Health, and those who get a shot by Sept. 30 will receive a $150 reward. Migoya said the policy will be in effect until “the end of the pandemic.”
Jackson Health was the first hospital in Miami-Dade to receive the vaccination for distribution to healthcare workers and eligible patients in December, Migoya said. Since then, about 60% of the Jackson Health workforce has been vaccinated, with take-up highest among third-year medical residents (91%), attending physicians (78%) and clinical staff nurses (56%).
“Our employees have had countless opportunities to get vaccinated,” Migoya said. “This new vaccine requirement for all Jackson employees may seem like a drastic measure, but it is critically important in order for us to save lives.”
The vaccination rate among Miami-Dade employees is less clear than at Jackson Health.
Levine Cava said the county polled employees last week through an anonymous survey asking them to self report their vaccination status. More than 5,000 employees, representing about 17% of the county’s workforce, took the survey, she said. More than 83% indicated they had taken the vaccine.
“We recognize those who have been vaccinated are probably more likely to take the survey,” she said.
Still, the county’s new testing policy is needed to ensure a safe workplace, Levine Cava said, and to reduce community spread of the disease. She said the testing requirement will begin with county employees who are not represented by a labor union, about 10% of the workforce, before rolling out to others.
“We have been working hard for months to make vaccines as successful as possible across Miami-Dade,” she said, “and urging everyone to get the shot, including our employees.”
Hiring Moskowitz, Florida’s former COVID expert
In recent weeks, Levine Cava has expanded vaccination and testing with new sites around Miami-Dade and reinstated an indoor mask mandate at all county facilities. Hiring Moskowitz amid a meteoric rise in new cases and a surge in hospitalizations, she said, will help the county manage the crisis.
“He helped to lead the state through some of the worst chapters of the pandemic,” she said, adding that Moskowitz will coordinate the county’s COVID response together with Miami-Dade’s fire rescue and other first responders and leaders at Jackson Health.
“He will advise us on our vaccination, testing and overall COVID strategy,” Levine Cava said of Moskowitz.
Moskowitz, who resigned as director of the state’s emergency management agency in February, said that in addition to ensuring the vaccine is readily available for county residents, his priority at present is to improve surveillance for the disease with more testing.
“Testing is most urgent,” he said.
Moskowitz, a former Florida House representative from Parkland, joins Miami-Dade at a moment when new cases, the rate of positive test results and hospitalizations are all rising in the county.
Though the county has a relatively high vaccination rate — about 71% or 1.6 million eligible residents have taken the vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — Miami-Dade has recorded an average of 490 new cases every day during the past week.
Much of the spread has been driven by the highly contagious delta variant, which now makes up more than 90% of virus samples taken in recent weeks from COVID-positive patients at Jackson Health and the University of Miami Health System.
The delta variant has ripped through the state, producing record numbers of new infections for Florida in the past week. On Thursday, Florida reported 20,133 new cases, the second-highest single-day count since the pandemic began in March 2020.
Rising hospitalizations
As new cases rise, hospitalizations follow.
At Jackson Health, doctors and nurses thought they were beginning to see the end of the pandemic just four weeks ago, when a total of 66 patients were hospitalized with COVID-19.
By July 23, that number had risen to 166 and by Thursday the number had nearly doubled to 320, Migoya said. Of those patients, about 11% were vaccinated and nearly all of them were immuno-compromised patients who had received an organ transplant.
The county’s daily COVID hospital report showed that 191 new patients, including 22 vaccinated people, were admitted to a local hospital with a confirmed or suspected infection on Wednesday, raising the total number of people hospitalized in Miami-Dade with the disease to 1,504 patients, including 282 in intensive care units.
This story was originally published August 5, 2021 at 8:37 PM.
