US airline Delta is to impose a $200 monthly surcharge on its unvaccinated employees from 1 November. The charge will apply to workers who are enrolled in the company’s healthcare plan.

In a message to staff, Delta boss Ed Bastian said that the average hospital stay for COVID-19 was costing the company $50,000 per person.

“This surcharge will be necessary to address the financial risk the decision to not vaccinate is creating for our company,” he said, adding that, in recent weeks, all Delta employees who had been hospitalised with the virus had not been fully vaccinated.

Weekly COVID test

Bastian also outlined a number of other measures planned to deal with the spread of the more contagious Delta variant of COVID-19.

Effective immediately, unvaccinated employees will now be required to wear masks in all of the company’s indoor settings. These workers will also have to take a COVID test each week, from 12 September.

From 30 September, Delta will provide sick pay for COVID only to fully vaccinated employees who experience a breakthrough infection.

Bastian said that 75% of the airline’s workforce had been vaccinated so far.

Goldman Sachs acts

Delta is the latest US company to introduce measures aimed at encouraging a higher take-up of vaccines.

Earlier this week, investment bank Goldman Sachs said that it would be compulsory for its staff to be fully vaccinated in order to work in its US offices.

In Ireland, experts say that there is currently no general legal basis for employers to request the vaccination status of employees.

Guidance from the Data Protection Commission earlier this year said that, as a general position, the processing of vaccine data was likely to represent “unnecessary and excessive data collection for which no clear legal basis exists”.