The vaccination of employees of large companies has begun: some more give up than they want

Starting on Thursday, large establishments, companies or organizations with at least 100 employees can be vaccinated. Vaccination is free and free.

The Minister of Health Arūnas Dulkys recommends that municipalities, as a priority, vaccinate those institutions, companies or organizations that have submitted applications and in which there are more COVID-19 diseases and outbreaks of this disease.

According to him, this decision was made because older people with chronic diseases and others who are currently being vaccinated are delaying vaccination with AstraZeneca and are waiting for the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines.

Some large companies have already started vaccinating their employees, as they belong to another priority group: food companies. Among them are Mantinga, the largest employer in Marijampolė county, and Krekenavos Agrofirma, one of the largest meat processing companies.

Plan to vaccinate 90 percent. workers

Linas Grikšas, manager of Krekenava Agrofirma, located near Kėdainiai, which has more than 1,000 employees, says that on Wednesday, the AstraZeneca company vaccinated 160 employees. The next vaccination is scheduled for Friday. The manager is optimistic about the willingness of employees to get vaccinated and believes that the vast majority will.

“We have not interviewed all the employees, we take them according to departments and shifts. It turns out that it will vaccinate about 90 percent. Employees vaccinate voluntarily. Some can’t get vaccinated, some have been vaccinated against tick-borne encephalitis, it’s been two weeks, someone has clots, doesn’t want to get vaccinated with AstraZeneca, and maybe other vaccinations are waiting. There are some who doubt, they may not want to be the first, “says L. Grikšas.

According to him, there has been a lot of communication within the company about the benefits of vaccines, the employees are being evaluated, so they are sufficiently involved and aware of this process. So far, the director of Krekenava Agrofirma is not considering how to encourage the remaining employees to get vaccinated.

“Our people are conscientious, they understand that they have many contacts, they work a lot in a relatively small space. We don’t even think much about it (additional incentives – Delphi) because we estimate that about 90% of us will be vaccinated, and we will think about the rest then. Whether we are waiting for others to get vaccinated or for other reasons, then we will try to find out individually, ”says the interlocutor.

No one refused to try

He assures that before the vaccination in the company, frequent tests were carried out on the employees, no one allegedly refused.
“We test according to the situation and according to the department. We tried more than once. In total, we may have made about 3,000. tests ”, he calculates.

According to the manager, there were no major outbreaks in the company during the entire pandemic period: “We clean the air of bacteria, microbes, full of special clothing, when we enter the airport we measure the temperature, inside we still measure everyone. We think we managed very well, we didn’t have any problems with the cases. “

A quarter of employees were vaccinated

Mantas Agentas, director of the Marijampolė-based bread, snacks and frozen food company Mantinga, also began testing employees. However, there are far fewer people who want to get vaccinated here. Over the weekend, 265 of the company’s more than 1,000 production workers were vaccinated.

“The mayor called last week and said there was an opportunity to vaccinate employees and we took advantage of it. The municipality had AstraZeneca vaccines in production, an amount it could not use elsewhere. Food industry workers were selected for vaccination according to established priorities. We were not the only company in Marijampolė ”, says M. Agent.

In Mantinga, only employees who work directly with food products, in a warehouse or in production, can vaccinate. The vaccination took place on Saturday at the company’s facilities. 265 workers were vaccinated in 3-4 hours. For some employees this happened during work, for others the company organized transportation, because the company has several factories.

“Initially, it was said that about 300 people would be vaccinated and fewer turned out. Someone did not listen, someone might have wanted to, but changed their mind. I think that when you see that those 265 are healthy, the vaccine has not done anything wrong, there will be more missing. Now only AstraZeneca could get vaccinated, they couldn’t choose. If there was an option, the percentage would increase.

You see how much negative information about the Astra Zeneca, it is normal that people start to distrust you. What a problem. Our company believes in science, we are like a vaccination company, but we cannot force it ”, points out M. Agent.

Employees will not be vaccinated

In a few days, the company plans to interview employees again and hopes that more people will want to get vaccinated.

“We will give the list to the municipality, the Public Health Center. If there is an opportunity, we will definitely provide it at our facilities, but it appears that the vaccination will take place at a polyclinic or other scheduled location.
And if we approve the request for large companies with more than 500 employees, and if we allow vaccinating not only production but also other employees, we will make lists of whoever wants to encourage vaccination ”, says the head of Mantinga.

The interviewee assures that he is not yet considering additional incentives.

“If we have more vaccines and we can vaccinate more workers and we see that vaccinations are very slow, maybe we will think of additional incentives. We are not really going to drive by force. Everyone’s freedom of choice will not be forced if they do not want to. We will not shoot if we do not get vaccinated. We will promote educational activities, we will try to communicate as much as possible “, says M. Agent.

According to him, it was not necessary to carry out regular tests on the company’s employees.

“I think our situation was well managed, knowing how many people are working. As much as possible, we had separated flows between factories and shifts, we took all possible security measures where possible, and we had no major outbreaks.

As many cases as we had, they weren’t with us in production, but outside the company, let’s say during downtime. We tested the employees several times when there was a risk of fire, and then we did not see the need, because it is something expensive, “he says.

According to the algorithm of the predetermined vaccination process, the head of the institution, company and organization draws up a list of people who want to be vaccinated, calls the vaccination coordinator of a particular municipality, agrees with which vaccination center to organize the vaccination, then the designated center is communicated to agree on the date and time of vaccination.

Vaccination can be carried out both in the vaccination center and under the appropriate conditions in the facilities of the establishment, company or organization.

Company employees can choose any vaccine. However, people who want to get vaccinated with Vaxrevria are likely to get vaccinated sooner. Comirnaty or Moderna vaccines may need to be delayed due to the waiting list.