Recognizing that widespread vaccination is a critical tool to help stop the pandemic and to decrease the severity of illness in those who are affected, Lutheran Services Carolinas has instituted a policy requiring all LSC team members to be vaccinated against COVID-19, based on vaccine availability, within four months.
LSC operations may provide exemptions from this requirement to be vaccinated as follows, if the exemption does not pose an excessive hardship on the operation:
- To team members who present a request for an acceptable medical exemption from vaccination,
- To team members who present a request for an exemption based on a sincere religious belief against vaccination, or
- For all 24/7 operations, to team members who the operation determines reasonably and in good faith should be exempt in order for the operation to be able to maintain appropriate staffing levels in the operation, which may be determined in a manner the operation deems to be reasonable.
All team members who receive exemptions from this requirement to be vaccinated must agree to perform routine COVID-19 testing per determined frequency, or random.
State or federal vaccine mandates and regulations may supersede LSC policy at any time. LSC will comply with federal regulations allowing unvaccinated visitors to visit nursing home residents, but they must remain masked at all times.
Volunteers must be vaccinated and must show proof of vaccination upon request.
