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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowRoche Diagnostics, one of region’s largest employers, announced Monday it is requiring COVID-19 vaccinations for all 8,000 people in its U.S. workforce, including about 4,500 in Indianapolis.
Employees will have until Nov. 15 to get fully vaccinated, or will be terminated, the company said in a statement.
About 3,000 people work on the company’s large campus at 9115 Hague Road on the northeast side and another 1,500 people work elsewhere across the region.
The operation is the North American diagnostics headquarters of Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche Inc.
The announcement comes as the highly contagious delta variant is sweeping across Indiana and the U.S.
“Our decision, like those we’ve taken throughout the pandemic, is grounded in science,” Roche Diagnostics’ statement said. “Our top priority is to protect the health and safety of our employees and ensure business continuity. With the continued rise of the delta variant, we believe more must be done to prevent the spread of the virus at our site and the risk it poses to our people and operations.”
Roche Diagnostics becomes the latest large employer in Indianapolis, after the large hospital systems, and drugmaker Eli Lilly and Co., to lay down the vaccination requirement.
Hospitalizations due to COVID-19 continued to climb statewide over the weekend, reaching their highest number since Jan. 20, according to Monday’s report from the Indiana State Department of Health.
“We believe this is in the best interest of everyone on our campuses and the communities where we work and live, our customers and the patients we serve,” the company said.
The company sells and services machines and software to help physicians, hospitals and laboratories throughout the United States and Canada analyze data and diagnose patients. It also makes machines and test strips for diabetes patients.
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very thoughtful and insightful comment bud
Get the vaccine or else what?
Like all the other companies that have said this statement, they’re not saying what the consequences are. Will people lose their jobs? Will managers not get their warmed cookies? Will the rank and file be forced to have processed cheese instead of imported Swiss?
Kind of meaningless without publicly known consequences.
“Employees will have until Nov. 15 to get fully vaccinated, or will be terminated, the company said in a statement.”
It’s right there in the article.
It’s in the 2nd sentence of a very short article. You could have read it twice in the time it took you to type that nonsense
Chuck W: +1
Chuck W: +2
Industry took too long to lead the way.
Roche may get the next vaccine contract. No wonder they play along
How in the world can you be cynical about a major life sciences business seeing the value of having its employees inoculated with a scientifically proven medicine that has saved millions of life? Roche has every reason and right to take this step.
Every right to deny an individual the ability to feed his family over an experimental drug that they chose not to put in their body? Educated people have ceased to be educated past the forced fed media propaganda. Lord help us if we cant look past the narrative and try and discover truth for ourselves
Jeffery R. –
Having a job is not a constitutional right. And again, Roche is a life sciences company. They know science, and clearly know better than you that these vaccinations are both safe and effective. That is why the current wave of infections isn’t attacking and killing those who are already vaccinated. What is there about facts you don’t understand?
Forgoing the debate on legitimacy of the vaccine’s benefits, the science states this vaccine is only beneficial to the person receiving it. The vaccine does NOTHING for others around that person. Risk of getting the virus & spreading it ARE still there. Someone please explain how this benefits Roche or any others in any way?
There are people who are unable to get this vaccine due to underlying health conditions the vaccine will conflict. So I am sure Roche is working to get ahead in this endeavor. It would be very disturbing to be forced to be vaccinated then be faced with blood clots, anaphylactic issues, or other outcomes.
Most employers have procedures for people with actual medical reasons to not get vaccinated. What doesn’t seem to fly with them is the nonsense Jeffrey is peddling.
“Discover truth for ourselves” is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. If you think that’s actually possible, beware that you’re in the thrall of misinformation.
The odds of an adverse event after vaccination are very, very low. Anaphylaxis is most common, but only 2-5 people experience it per million people, or 0.0002-0.0005%. 44 cases of thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome have occurred with the J&J vaccine, out of 14,000,000 doses, or 0.0003% of patients. It hasn’t been determined if myocarditis is actually caused by the Moderna vaccine. Scientists have never measured cases of myocarditis in populations before. It’s possible that those cases are not connected to a vaccine at all. COVID causes myocarditis in many patients, though, along with severe heart damage. COVID also causes blood clots that result into strokes and heart attacks. A study of 27 million people found the risk of clots from COVID 6-14 times higher than from vaccination.
The only restriction on receiving the COVID vaccines is a previous anaphylactic reaction to a similar COVID vaccine. Even people who experienced myocarditis after a COVID vaccine are recommended to get their 2nd shot.
My employer gave me 3 1/2 days paid off to take the vaccine.I would have gotten any way.Not scared.
Forgoing the debate on legitimacy of the vaccine’s benefits, the science states this vaccine is only beneficial to the person receiving it. The vaccine does NOTHING for others around that person. Risk of getting the virus & spreading it ARE still there. Someone please explain how this benefits Roche or any others in any way?