Mandating Melrose Employee Vaccinations Looks Less Likely Than Ever

MELROSE, MA — Sitting before the City Council in January, Health Director Anthony Chui advocated for requiring city employees to report their COVID-19 vaccination status and said the city was exploring a vaccine mandate for its workers.

On Monday, Chui acknowledged while there may have been some movement on the former, the chances of the latter were waning.

"One of the things we're running into, we're seeing because the severity is not as high with this omicron variant and we haven't been seeing death rates or hospitalizations increase, we haven't been able to justify putting in a vaccine mandate," Chui said.

Chui added that legal challenges are another obstacle of any mandate, which would cover everyone from DPW to public safety. (School employees are not included.)

He said the city is still gathering vaccination rates on employees some two months after he endorsed requiring such information. Such data is not publicly available.

Chui also revealed City Hall saw an increase in COVID-19 cases during the last surge.

Councilor Maya Jamaleddine pressed Chui on the issues of vaccine data and mandates following his report on COVID-19 in the city. She said asking the residents to be vaccinated while city employees go unvaccinated sends a "conflicting message."

Chui said Melrose is in a much better place with COVID-19 — he called it a "transition stage" in which the city is moving from pandemic to endemic.

But he cautioned against getting too complacent, warning that the omicron subvariant fueling an increase of cases overseas could still complicate things here.

"One of the important things I want to make sure everybody remembers is that COVID is still around," he said. "We are lucky enough right now to be seeing very low levels."

Mike Carraggi can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @PatchCarraggi and Instagram at Melrose Happening. Subscribe to Melrose Patch for free local news and alerts and like us on Facebook