“Two of the region’s largest health care providers will require vaccines for employees as coronavirus cases — and hospitalizations — rise amid the spread of the delta variant. Lowell General Hospital’s parent company, Wellforce, notified its employees of the vaccine requirement on Aug. 10. Last Friday, the Lowell Community Health Center issued its own vaccine mandate.”
“The US Food and Drug Administration on Monday granted full approval to the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine for people age 16 and older. This is the first coronavirus vaccine approved by the FDA, and is expected to open the door to more vaccine mandates.”
The CDC now recommends the COVID-19 vaccine for everyone aged 12 years and older, including people who are pregnant, breastfeeding, trying to get pregnant, or might become pregnant in the future. Pregnant and recently pregnant people are more likely to get severely ill with COVID-19 compared with non-pregnant people, and data suggest that the benefits of receiving a COVID-19 vaccine outweigh any known or potential risks of vaccination during pregnancy.
