Councilmember pushes for protections for St. Louis County employees mandated to get COVID vaccine

By KMOV.COM STAFF

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    ST. LOUIS COUNTY, MO (KMOV) — Tuesday night, St. Louis County Councilman Tim Fitch will introduce a measure calling for those made to get a coronavirus vaccine be protected.

The Republican’s push is to provide lifetime healthcare to any St. Louis County government employee who has any illness related to the COVID-19 vaccine. The bill would also make the county provide a $1 million benefit to the beneficiary of any county government worker who dies because of the vaccine. In addition, employees who get the vaccine and contract COVID-19 will be able to recover on country-paid time instead of using personal leave.

News 4 dug into some of the CDC data on serious adverse reactions. Out of three serious conditions (heart inflammation, Guillian-Barre syndrome, and rare blood clots) there were about 1,600 reports of issues out of 209 million people who have received at least one dose. News 4 also took a deep dive into data from Missouri in the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) 1,252 symptoms were classified as “serious” as well as “life threatening.” The highest number of reports was 30 for dyspnoea, which is difficult or labored breathing. The CDC’s VAERS results for Missouri show 5,585 results for symptoms that may were classified as “serious” but not necessarily “life threatening”. The symptoms reported to the CDC’s database in these results include chest pain, chills, fatigue, headache, fever, and vomiting. The Missouri Department of Health & Senior Services reports more than 3.2 million people in the state have received at least one vaccine dose.

The CDC reports death after vaccination at 0.002%. The FDA requires healthcare providers to report any death after vaccination, even if it is unclear whether the vaccine was the cause.

According to the CDC, reports of adverse events following vaccinations do not necessarily mean that a vaccine caused the health problem.

St. Louis County does not currently have a vaccine mandate for county employees.

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