SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX 5) — City firefighters and police officers in San Francisco who work in high-risk settings on Wednesday were facing an Oct. 13 deadline to show proof they have received the COVID vaccine.
Early Wednesday afternoon outside San Francisco City Hall, there were a handful of people protesting the COVID vaccine deadline that high-risk city workers were facing.
At a Wednesday meeting of the San Francisco Fire Commission, KPIX learned from the fire chief’s report that 41 active members of the SFFD are currently non-compliant.
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That number does not include those on disability, though those firefighters will be required to receive the COVID vaccine before they can return to duty.
For the 41 firefighters not in compliance, the chief said they cannot enter any fire stations until they have received the vaccine.
KPIX 5 also checked with the San Francisco Police Department.
According to San Francisco Police Officers’ Association, 120 sworn officers, 80 of them that work in the patrol division, will be off the job Thursday after failing to comply with the city’s vaccine mandate.
“In a city of this size, the month of October and all the things going on, that’s going to put quite a dent into operations,” said SFPOA vice president Tracy McCray, citing major events such as the Giants playoff run.
McCray cites religious beliefs and concerns about the long term effects of the COVID-19 vaccine as the reasons why some officers refuse to get the shot. The POA said they would like the City of San Francisco to implement a weekly COVID-19 testing option to keep those officers on the job, but Mayor London Breed is not budging on the mandate.
“Our human resources department is continuing to try to work with people individually but we are going to stand by what we committed to do and right now it is not impacting city services,” Breed said.
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Months ago, Breed’s office announced that any of the 3,500 city workers who didn’t comply with the mandate could be terminated.
The fire chief said the employees within her department who are not in compliance will have a meeting with administrators to determine what happens next.
Early Wednesday evening, KPIX 5 learned some San Francisco police officers will get more time to become fully vaccinated. Those currently in between their first and second shots will now have until November 12th to fulfill the requirement.
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Andrea Nakano contributed to this report.
Source: sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com.