Philly relaxes COVID vaccination policy for city workers now that national emergencies have ended

Most Philadelphia municipal employees are no longer required to be vaccinated for COVID-19, Philadelphia officials said, ending a pandemic policy that went into effect less than a year ago.

As of last week, only city workers with jobs that put them in contact with patients, such as doctors or nurses, must be vaccinated, said Sarah Peterson, a spokesperson for the city. Philadelphia changed its policy in response to the end of two national emergency declarations earlier this month and new recommendations from the Philadelphia Department of Public Health.

The relaxed city employee mandate complies with the health department’s requirement that health-care practitioners in the city, with the exception of home-care workers, be vaccinated against COVID.

“The City updated its COVID-19 safety protocols to align with local health-care worker vaccination requirements while also recognizing that COVID-19 transmission has declined,” Peterson said.

The week Philadelphia announced the vaccine mandate, in November 2021, the city reported 17 COVID deaths, and 91 hospitalizations, according to Philadelphia’s COVID dashboard. The city had one COVID death and five hospitalizations in the first week of May 2023, the most recent data available.

The vaccine mandate for city employees was one of the few pandemic safety restrictions still in effect in Philadelphia. On May 10, the Philadelphia Department of Public Health ended a requirement that people wear masks in city hospitals, the city’s last remaining mask mandate.

» READ MORE: You may soon be able to stop masking to enter Philly hospitals

Philadelphia’s vaccine mandate applied to city contractors and about 22,000 unionized municipal employees, and its introduction prompted difficult negotiations with the four major labor unions representing city workers. Employees were originally supposed to be fully vaccinated by January 2022, but union concerns caused the city to delay the deadline repeatedly.

The mandate didn’t fully go into effect until the end of June 2022. By August, the vast majority of city workers had gotten their shots, and about 3,000 received exemptions.

Fewer than 100 workers lost their jobs because they refused to comply with the mandate, the city reported. They would now be considered for city jobs if they applied, Peterson said.

Despite its contentious rollout, the vaccine mandate ended with little fanfare, a sign of how concerns about COVID have faded in the intervening year and a half.

» READ MORE: The pandemic emergency declarations are officially over. Here’s what that means for you.

“I can’t remember the last time anyone here’s had a conversation about the vaccine mandate,” said Bret Coles, a spokesperson for AFSCME District Council 33, which represents about 10,000 city municipal employees.

Coles was blasé about the mandate’s end, saying most workers complied and those who sought exemptions were largely able to receive them.

“It wasn’t really an issue with us at all,” he said.