Thread by @cfishman

Delta Airlines becomes the 1st major company to take a big vaccine step:

Charging employees who aren't vaccinated—by raising their health insurance premiums.

The cost to stay unvaccinated: $200 a month (starting Nov. 1).

With good economic reason…

—>
cnbc.com/2021/08/25/del…

2/ Each case of a Delta employee who is hospitalized with COVID has cost the airline an average of $50,000.

And in the last several weeks, Delta's CEO says, every Delta employee hospitalized for COVID has been unvaccinated.

Bullet points from his memo to staff below.

3/ Delta is actually taking a series of steps over weeks to put pressure on staff to vaccinate.

At this moment, 70% of Delta's 91,000 employees are vaccinated.

If you're unvaccinated:

• Must wear mask at work, starting today

• Sept 12: Must test weekly

—>

4/ Unvaccinated Delta employees' new rules, con't:

If you're unvaccinated:

• Sept 30: You lose COVID pay protection — no pay if you get COVID, unless you use your own sick & vacation time.

• Nov 1: Starting paying $200 a month in added health insurance premiums.

5/ Two additional points.

Delta is 'self-insured' for health insurance purposes — so the company and its employees pay directly for COVID hospitalizations and treatment (and all health care costs). That makes the economic burden direct and immediate.

6/ Also, the CEO of Delta took pains not to refer to the new variant as…the delta variant. He used the technical designation:

B.1.617.2.

(Side note: Some media reporting COVID costs Delta $40,000 / employee hospitalized, others $50,000. Memo appears to say $50k.)

✈️