Litchfield Fire & Rescue stands to lose about five of their 22 employees as a result of the vaccine mandate.
LITCHFIELD — Town officials have asked Gov. Janet Mills to reverse the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for healthcare workers. In a letter to Mills, Litchfield officials expressed concern the requirement infringes on the philosophical and religious freedoms of health care workers and could lead to employee shortages in EMS agencies across the state. Originally introduced in August, the mandate required all health care workers to be fully vaccinated by Oct.1. It defined health care workers as anyone working for a hospital, multi-level health care facility, home health agency, nursing facility, residential care facility, state-licensed intermediate care facility, and EMS workers. Earlier this month, Gov. Mills announced that the deadline would be extended to Oct.29 in order to give health care workers more time to receive the vaccine. She also said that $146 million in state and federal funding would be provided to nursing facilities, residential care facilities, adult family care homes, and hospitals to help them handle workforce recruitment and retention amid the pandemic. In his statement, Sherman said the department stood to lose about a quarter of their roster of 22 as a result of the rule. He said those crew members have ideological objections to the mandate. The chief clarified that the town is opposed to the mandate itself, but not vaccines in general. “These things often get painted as a bunch of anti-vaxxers,” Sherman said. “We’re talking about people that are intelligent, people that have had conversations with their doctors. We’re talking about people who give these things a lot of thought and have had numerous vaccines in the past. We’re not talking about a bunch of people opposed to vaccines. We’re opposing a mandate; we’re opposing a forced vaccination.” Weissenfels shared similar sentiments about the crew in his cover letter to Gov. Janet Mills. “These are people who willingly drop what they are doing at a moment’s notice to go to the aid of friends and neighbors,” the town manager wrote. “They understand personal sacrifice.
