JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. — Ballad Health CEO Alan Levine said a COVID-19 outbreak among heart surgery staff at Johnson City Medical Center shows a vaccine mandate is bad idea.
Ballad is now sending patients who need certain heart surgeries to Kingsport or Bristol after six of nine staff members in the Johnson City unit contracted COVID-19. Levine sent a letter asking for exceptions to a federal vaccine mandate on health care workers.
“Would a vaccine mandate have prevented this?” News 5’s Caleb Perhne asked Levine.
“I don’t think so,” Levine answered. “Because the majority of employees impacted are vaccinated. What we’re seeing is a lot of breakthrough cases. People who are vaccinated are able to catch this virus with the omicron variant.”
CDC data shows omicron reduces vaccine effectiveness to 35 percent against infection while still protecting against hospitalization. Boosters restore 75 percent protection against getting sick.
A Ballad spokesperson would not say if the infected staff members had received booster shots.
Tennessee data shows a rising number of breakthrough cases as omicron surges though most cases are still among the unvaccinated.
Despite masks and other precautions in hospitals, Levine expects this is just the first of many outbreaks to impact staffing.
“With it being so many people in one department, does this suggest it’s spreading at work?” Caleb asked Levine.
“I can’t speculate on that, Caleb. I don’t know,” Levine answered. “I have no idea if they’ve been to events together or if they’ve been to Christmas parties together. At this point, I don’t know.”
Levine said this outbreak shows how tight hospital staffing is. Before a federal court paused enforcement of the vaccine mandate, 2,000 Ballad staff members had neither gotten vaccinated nor requested an exemption.
“That’s 15 percent of our workforce,” Levine said. “Can you imagine what that would have done to health care access in our region? It would have devastated us.”
The Supreme Court is set to take up the mandate Friday, but Levine is asking the government for waivers for hospitals with staffing concerns or to delay until June, to only ask for the first dose, to exclude contract workers, and to not question religious exemptions.