Baker 'Seriously Considering' COVID Vaccine Mandate For State Workers
BOSTON (CBS) -- State workers in Massachusetts may soon need to get the COVID vaccine or at least submit to regular testing for the virus, Gov. Charlie Baker indicated Wednesday.
Baker, in an interview with GBH's Boston Public Radio, said the state may follow Boston's model of requiring public employees to get vaccinated or produce negative tests regularly. He also said he's looking at an approach where employees are expected to get vaccinated by a certain date, and if not, "we'll have to work through what the consequences of that will be."
"That is something that we are seriously considering and I think we'll have more to say about it shortly for those state workers that we actually work with and have operational administrative responsibility for," he said.
The administration has already ordered all nursing home workers to get vaccinated.
Back in May, before the highly contagious Delta variant caused a surge in cases in Massachusetts and around the United States, Baker said he was opposed to vaccine mandates, especially before the shots receive full approval from the federal government. He said he preferred using incentive-based approaches to convince people to get vaccinated.
