The Philadelphia Streets Dept. has the lowest vaccination rate of wards
All municipal employees and contractors must have the COVID vaccine by mid-January.
Mark Henninger / Imagic Digital
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After hesitating to adopt a universal mandate, Philadelphia announced on November 19 that all city employees and contractors should be vaccinated for COVID.
The new rule includes employees represented by unions who did not fall under the previous rule when the Kenney administration negotiated with labor leaders. Municipal workers who do not have a valid religious or medical exemption must now be fully vaccinated by 14 January.
“As public servants, we have a responsibility to mitigate the damage that would result from the inadvertent transfer of COVID-19 to our colleagues and the public and to be an example to other organizations and businesses,” Mayor Jim Kenney said in a statement. “We owe it to our city – and to ourselves – to do everything we can to keep us all safe.”
How many have already been vaccinated? The figures captured by the city’s self-report system were not considered accurate; some have called it difficult to use. So the Philadelphia Department of Health began cross-checking city employees’ records with other vaccine records.
Using this method, epidemiologists were able to create an overall estimate. By the end of October, over 65% of urban workers, or two-thirds, had been vaccinated.
Officials also collected percent vaccinated areas for each of Philly’s major city wards (these are areas instead of exact numbers to protect staff privacy in smaller wards, according to a city statement).
The numbers reported are minimum values and may be higher, Health Commissioner Cheryl Bettigole said because they do not include people who received their vaccine outside of Philadelphia.
See the latest statistics in the chart below.
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