Denver Health, UCHealth Mandate Vaccines For Employees

DENVER, CO — Two Colorado health systems announced they are mandating coronavirus vaccines for employees.

UCHealth announced it will require all employees, partners and volunteers to be vaccinated by Oct. 1, Denver Health said it will require employees to be vaccinated by Nov. 1.

Both health systems said that employees who refuse to get their shots can be fired, but that workers can opt out of getting their vaccine for religious or medical reasons.

The mandates were issued as the delta variant continues to spread rapidly in Colorado. As of Tuesday, more than 2,700 cases of the variant were reported in our state, and cases have more than doubled or tripled in some counties over the past 10 days, public health data shows.

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Dr. Michelle Barron, senior medical director of infection prevention for UCHealth, said the majority of patients who have been hospitalized with COVID-19 have been unvaccinated.

"About 94% of our hospitalized patients are unvaccinated, and even for fully vaccinated people who get sick, the vaccine reduces the severity of the illness," Barron said in UCHealth Today.

"Vaccinated people are less likely to need ICU-level care or to die even if they need hospitalization.”

Both UCHealth and Denver Health representatives said they hope their vaccine mandates provide models for the community.

Any employees who receive a vaccine exemption will be required to wear masks at all times and undergo frequent testing in both health systems.