CVS Health, parent company of Hartford health insurer Aetna, will require certain employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 as the company moves forward with plans for a voluntary return to the office early next month.
The health care services and insurance conglomerate told Hartford Business Journal that certain employees who interact with patients — including nurses and care managers — must be fully vaccinated by Oct. 31. Similarly, all corporate staff must also be fully vaccinated by that date.
Pharmacists working in CVS’ retail stores will get a bit longer to get their shots, with their deadline being Nov. 30, due to “the size of this employee population,” a company spokesman said in a statement.
CVS Health officials said they’re currently considering extending the vaccine mandate to other roles and will make those determinations in accordance with public health data and guidance from experts.
“From the start of the pandemic, our decision-making process has been driven by health, safety and science,” said CVS Health President and CEO Karen S. Lynch. “While the vast majority of our employees have chosen to be vaccinated, this decision is in direct response to the dramatic rise in cases among the unvaccinated.”
Meantime, CVS Health employees will have the option of voluntarily returning to their offices starting on Sept. 7. The company said this “voluntary period” is designed to help workers continue to attend to family needs and adjust their personal schedules after working remotely for much of the last year and a half.
Those who do opt to return must be fully vaccinated and wear a mask or face covering.
While CVS Health officials did not say when this “voluntary period” might end, they did note that the company’s approach to work going forward “will include a combination of worksite and remote work,” echoing similar statements from insurers such as Travelers Cos. and The Hartford.
Some major employers in the Hartford region, including Bloomfield-based Cigna and the state of Connecticut, have embraced vaccine mandates in response to the spread of the COVID-19 delta variant, which is finding its way into unvaccinated pockets of the population and, in rare instances, causing breakthrough infections in immunized people.
The number of companies requiring workers to get the shot is expected to rise, possibly exponentially, in the coming weeks and months now that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has fully approved Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.
