Duke will be requiring COVID-19 vaccinations for all Duke health care employees, according to a Thursday email to health care workers from John Sampson, president of the Private Diagnostic Clinic.
Health care team members must show documentation of their completed vaccination by 10 a.m. on Sept. 21 as a condition of employment. Those who wish to submit medical or religious exemptions must do so by Sept. 7.
About 75% of Duke Health team members have been vaccinated, according to the email.
Sampson wrote that vaccines are now required to align with Duke Health’s core value of “caring for our patients, their loved ones and each other,” wanting to increase the percentage of those vaccinated and to protect workers against the highly transmissible delta variant of the coronavirus.
The University previously announced that it will be requiring vaccines for students, faculty and staff, with the exception of those with medical or religious exemptions. Duke announced Thursday morning that 82% of University staff and faculty are fully vaccinated.
Fifty-seven percent of North Carolinians ages 12 or older are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, with 54% of this group having received at least one dose, according to the NC Department of Health and Human Services.
When asked how Duke came to the decision to require vaccines for health care workers, Vice President for Administration Kyle Cavanaugh told The Chronicle that an "increasing number of health systems across the national have required team members to be fully vaccinated."
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Leah Boyd is a Pratt senior and a social chair of The Chronicle's 118th volume. She was previously editor-in-chief for Volume 117.