US broadcaster dismisses three unvaccinated staff

Media boss sends out ‘zero-tolerance’ memo as staff are fired for coming to work unvaccinated.

CNN Worldwide chief Jeff Zucker sent a memo to all staff outlining the company’s zero-tolerance on unvaccinated staff. Picture: Getty

A US broadcaster has fired three people who came to work unvaccinated against Covid-19 as corporate America cracks down on vaccine-hesitant staff.

Jeff Zucker, the CNN chief, sent a memo reminding staff that vaccines were mandatory for the office or outside where they came into contact with other employees. Tech companies including Facebook, Google and Microsoft have all said they require staff to be jabbed before returning to their US offices while United Airlines yesterday became the first American carrier to require all its 67,000 domestic employees to be fully vaccinated.

President Biden has been pressing hard for people to get vaccinated since he took office in January. But after peaking in April, the rate of those getting vaccinated each day fell sharply. The White House said yesterday that more than half were fully vaccinated.

“Fifty per cent of Americans (all ages) are now fully vaccinated. Keep going!,” Cyrus Shahpar, White House Covid-19 data director, said in a tweet.

That means 165 million people have received either the two-dose Moderna or Pfizer vaccine or the one-shot Johnson & Johnson jab. The threshold of half of all adult Americans fully vaccinated was reached in May.

Corporate America is hardening its stance on vaccines. “Let me be clear - we have a zero-tolerance policy on this,” Zucker, chairman of news and sports for WarnerMedia, said. Most of CNN’s offices are open on a voluntary basis and Zucker said a third of news staff had returned. He said proof of vaccination had been taken on trust. The CNN boss added that masks would be mandatory in its Los Angeles, Atlanta and Washington offices when people were not eating, drinking or in an enclosed private space.

In offices where mask-wearing was not required, people should do what felt comfortable “without any fear of retaliation or judgment from co-workers”, he said. Zucker said CNN was likely to postpone its September 7 date for returning to the office until October.

The Times