Why and how you should safely collect employee vaccination data

Early this year, many CEOs breathed sighs of relief as they began to hear talk about moving beyond COVID. Unfortunately, many experts believe that, far from abating, COVID will be bringing us more surges in the future. As COVID rates show signs of an increase due to the latest omicron subvariants, and new variants are identified in Europe, companies have good reason to monitor employee vaccination and specifically booster records within the workplace.

Vaccination is just as important now as it was earlier in the pandemic. Omicron is 30% to 60% more transmissible than the Delta variant, meaning a corporate event could easily become a super-spreader event if the attendees are unvaccinated. More than 60% of Americans suffer from at least one chronic condition that can worsen COVID symptoms. That means that attending an event or returning to the workplace without an updated booster shot can bring exposure to a life-threatening illness.

It’s essential to protect all of your employees and their families as you plan for a return to the workplace or schedule corporate events. To do that, you need to know which of your employees have received boosters — and when.

Vaccination, booster monitoring, and long-COVID

The latest omicron subvariants may be less likely than delta to cause hospitalization or death, but research shows that there is still a 30% to 50% chance patients will experience some long-term effects from contracting any COVID variant (the definition is at least one symptom for over 4 weeks). This condition is called long-COVID, and for a smaller number of sufferers, the effects can be life-altering and last months or years. The newest data suggests that .5% to 2% of those with long-COVID will experience long-term, debilitating consequences — this is not a typically acceptable public health risk, So, it’s no wonder many employees are still concerned about returning to the workplace or attending indoor corporate events. Employers need a way to help employees and event attendees feel, and be, safer while still reaping the benefits of the in-person experience.

Let’s say you’re planning for an indoor corporate event to foster unity within your company, or to market your services to other companies. You’ll be bringing in attendees from different states or even different countries with different levels of prevalence and regulations regarding COVID prevention and COVID vaccinations. Testing is no longer required for international travel, so there’s a good chance some attendees will have COVID and just not know it yet. If people show up to an event and then test positive for COVID, they may need to delay returning home. Worse still, the newest variants take only 3.5 days on average to incubate. That means if someone takes three days to get a negative result back from a PCR test, they could contract COVID while waiting for results and could still spread COVID at the event before anyone is even aware.

Chances are you’ve been planning this event for months or even years in advance, and suddenly, your plans are ruined, or you have a super-spreader event on your hands. The expense and effort you put into making sure attendees could come in-person are suddenly wasted. Even worse, others who may have been exposed will rightly be concerned about the possibility of bringing COVID home to their families and the long-term effects if they do contract the disease. To solve the issue, many employers require their staff members and meeting attendees to show proof of vaccination and boosting before returning to the workplace or attending an event. Vaccination, or rather a recent booster, is still considered the most effective means of protecting people from hospitalization and death from the virus. However, the fact that an employee has been vaccinated/boosted at some point in the past doesn’t necessarily mean they’re still protected against long-COVID, or contracting or transmitting the virus.

The COVID vaccines/boosters offer protection for a time. Vaccines generate antibodies, which are proteins in your immune system that fight against the virus. While the number of antibodies is very high directly after receiving a vaccine or booster, the number falls rapidly, leaving you less protected. A booster raises the number of antibodies once again, but studies have shown that immunity also wears off after a certain amount of time; usually around four to six months. That’s why the CDC currently recommends getting a booster shot once every five or six months. But vaccination/boosting does not necessarily stop you from getting COVID or transmitting it to others. Still, it can protect employees from serious illness, hospitalization, and death.

The important thing here is that it’s not really sufficient to monitor whether employees have been vaccinated or received a booster. You need information on how recently they’ve been vaccinated if you are interested in protecting them from hospitalization and death. To protect your team from illness and the debilitating effects of long-COVID, as well as maintain productivity, the key is to stop anyone who is contagious from entering the event in the first place. If they have received a booster within the previous five or six months, they may still be susceptible to the virus. On the other hand, if they are tested at the door with a PCR-equivalent test (which lateral-flow antigen tests are not), you’ve provided best-in-class protocols and a high degree of certainty that your chances of getting or transmitting the virus (and all that comes with it) are avoided — and you have now adapted to the new normal

Tracking vaccination and testing data

Ensuring employees get vaccinated is important, certainly, but you need a way to track whether or not employees are currently protected by a booster shot or when they need to get their next booster. To do that, you need to collect employee vaccination data. The same goes for testing. If your employees test at home or get a PCR test, they need an easy method to report a positive test, and you need a way to keep track of results.

Of course, collecting vaccination and testing data from your employees raises another question. What methods can you use to both collect and protect vaccination and testing data, and how can you prevent unauthorized access? Can your workers trust you to protect their data?

Software programs now exist that allow employees to upload vaccination and testing data for you to track. You can see when they were vaccinated as well as when they are up for a booster, or whether or not an employee has tested positive. The interfaces are typically simple and easy to use, but be sure to check that they are HIPAA-compliant and secure. You need to provide safety for your employees while also keeping data secure from unauthorized access.

You can also use tracking software to define company-wide vaccination and testing policies and protocols. This will allow you to plan for your corporate event without worrying about any unfortunate and potentially dangerous surprises.

Businesses are split on whether remote work is the best option for productivity. But when it comes to corporate events, a majority of professionals believe in-person engagement significantly increases the effectiveness of these events for generating leads. So, live corporate events will likely continue to be an important part of your business strategy going forward.

Related: How much will COVID-19 vaccines cost after the federal government stops paying for them?

As you plan to move forward with holding corporate events or potentially bringing employees back to the workplace during the pandemic, your first goal should be to ensure employees are protected with best-in-class safety measures. Some of the best ways you can do that are by monitoring and tracking vaccinations and testing on-site with high-accuracy, best-in-class technology and protocols.

Bill Stone, CEO at AllClear Healthcare, the company that helps organizations and individuals navigate more safely and effectively the “new-normal” COVID-19 reality.