What you need to know
- Apple has launched a multi-thronged approach to getting its employees vaccinated.
- The effort includes an internal website, a memo, internal talks, and a partnership with Walgreens.
- The company has stopped short of making it a requirement.
Apple is launching a huge effort to get the rest of its employees vaccinated.
As reported by Bloomberg, the company has launched a new internal website, sent a memo to all employees, and is also hosting educational talks in the effort to get all of its employees vaccinated.
The new effort comes after the United States Food and Drug Administration gave full approval for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on Monday.
"Apple is asking everyone who has access to the vaccine and is able to get vaccinated to do so as soon as you can," the company said in the memo, which was sent to staff Thursday evening. Sumbul Desai, Apple's vice president of health efforts, and Kristina Raspe, vice president in charge of real estate, are also hosting talks to encourage employees to get the shots.The company's web page for employees discusses Covid-19's delta variant and explains how a vaccine could help prevent its spread. The company also emphasized that the version made by Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE has received official approval from the FDA."This is an important step in the global fight against Covid-19," the site says.
In addition to the website and internal communication, the company is also providing vouchers for both employees and their dependents to get vaccinated. Apple has apparently partnered up with Walgreens, a nationwide drugstore in the United States, to launch the effort. The company is also offering on-site vaccinations at its corporate offices in Silicon Valley and Austin, Texas.
Despite all of its increased effort around recommending vaccination, the company has not gone so far as other competing companies like Google and Facebook, who are now requiring employees to be vaccinated in order to come into the office.
Apple has continued to face delays for its plans to return to some sense of normalcy. The company has reinstated mask requirements at most of its retail stores in the United States and pushed back its plans to return employees to its offices until at least January of next year.
