St. Petersburg Sanitary Doctor would like 80% of employees to be vaccinated
On October 12, 2021, St. Petersburg Chief State Sanitary Doctor adopted Order No. 3 dated October 12, 2021 (further the “Order”) which affects a significant number of entities operating in St. Petersburg.
Organizations or individual entrepreneurs operating in:
- Education, healthcare, social protection and social services;
- Trade, including courier delivery;
- Catering, including courier delivery;
- Provision of services for temporary accommodation (hotels, hostels, guest houses, boarding houses, camping, etc.)
- Public transport and taxis;
- Household services, including laundry, dry cleaning, and other similar services;
- Beauty salons, cosmetic, spa salons, massage parlors, solariums, baths, saunas, fitness centers, swimming pools;
- Customer services in financial organizations;
- Organizations providing postal services;
- Multifunctional centers for provision of state and municipal services;
- Housing and utility services;
- Cultural, exhibition, educational events (including museums, exhibition halls, libraries, excursions);
- Leisure, entertainment, entertainment events, shows (including game events, master classes), theaters, cinemas, concert halls;
must ensure that at least 80% of the total number of their employees working under employment contracts and people working for them under civil law contracts are vaccinated against coronavirus.
This obligation must be fulfilled by:
November 15, 2021 – for the first vaccine dose or single-dose vaccine;
December 15, 2021 – for the second vaccine dose.
The activities of organizations and individual entrepreneurs specified in the Order are determined based on the OKVED code as recorded in the register of companies regardless of whether it is their primary or secondary activity.
As we understand, the Sanitary Doctor‘s idea is that it will be possible to include in the remaining 20% only workers who have had coronavirus in the last 6 months or have confirmed vaccine contraindications.
We think that the Order raises many questions, in particular:
- What to do if more than 20% of employees fell ill in the last 6 months?
- How to choose, in such case, the workers who should be sent for compulsory vaccination, despite the presence of antibodies due to their recent illness?
- Should employers suspend from work those unvaccinated employees who have been ill in the last 6 months and refuse to be vaccinated if the total number of vaccinated workers is less than 80%?
Rosportrebnadzor will probably clarify these and other issues soon. As practice shows, Rospotrebnadzor is lavish with explanations.
Judging by earlier explanations given by Rospotrebnadzor, we can assume that employers will be required to ensure that those employees who have been ill in the last 6 months get vaccinated, if the total number of their vaccinated employees is less than 80%, and if employees refuse to get vaccinated, they will be suspended from work.
We will watch this space and publish any clarifications provided by Rospotrebnadzor as soon as they appear.
If you have any further questions, please feel free to write to Julia Talagaeva or Ekaterina Belyaeva.
Truly yours,