Hi everyone, it’s Kevin. Today is Wednesday, October 27th (date recorded).
As you well know, the federal government recently released COVID-19 Workplace Safety Guidance, which includes a COVID-19 vaccination mandate for all employees of covered federal contractors. For those of us here at EB, that mandate becomes effective when our direct customer—the Navy—provides us with contractual modifications that require us to implement it.
While I know the lack of clarity is frustrating for some, I also recognize that implementing the mandate before it is necessary could be disruptive to some of you and to our business. Therefore, we have chosen to stay the course and not implement a vaccine mandate at EB until we have further clarification from the government. We are working with the Navy to get that.
For those already vaccinated, I thank you for taking action to protect yourself and others. If you are not yet vaccinated, I urge you to do so. After you have been vaccinated, please send an email to proofofcovidvaccination@gdeb.com with your name and badge number in the subject line. Please attach a valid proof of vaccination, like a scanned image of a vaccine card or medical record. Having this information on file will make implementing a mandate much smoother when the time comes.
Medical experts, including our own doctors, say that being vaccinated provides protection against potential infection with COVID-19 and lowers the likelihood of serious illness or hospitalization if you do get a breakthrough infection. To date, more than 414 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been given in the United States. According to the CDC, these vaccines are safe and effective, and meet the Food and Drug Administration’s rigorous scientific standards for safety, effectiveness, and manufacturing quality needed to support approval or authorization of a vaccine.
In the very early stages of the pandemic, we stood up a COVID task force, which was a cross-functional team including representatives from across the company. This team is still working and has acquired sufficient stock of vaccines and has plans in place to ensure we can move out quickly when and if the mandate is invoked. These plans include making provisions for religious and medical exemptions. In a while, Andrew Bond from Human Resources will provide some additional details on those exemptions.
We will provide more information about when and how our rollout will be put in motion. I recognize there are timelines for the various vaccines, and depending on the vaccine you choose, we are at or nearing the date to receive your first shot. We will determine deadlines when we receive Navy direction.
I’ve received messages from many of you about your concerns about what the coming weeks will bring. Throughout the pandemic, my guiding principle, and that of the EB senior leadership team, has been consistent—keep everyone as safe as we reasonably can while staying focused on designing, building and maintaining the submarines our nation needs. To date, we have worked together to keep our workforce safe and achieve our mission, and our intention is to continue this principle-guided approach.
Thank you for your continued focus on our mission. We’ll talk again soon.
