The posters show information about a vaccination site run by the Santa Clara County Department of Health at Levi’s Stadium, home of the San Francisco 49ers NFL football team, in Santa Clara, California, on February 9, 2021.
Brittany Hosea-Small | Reuters
The NFL is taking its strongest stance on returning to the normalcy of the pandemic.
The message? Get vaccinated.
In a note obtained by CNBC, Commissioner Roger Goodell said, “In light of the high eligibility of the vaccine, it is appropriate now to take additional steps to educate and promote vaccine availability and acceptance in the NFL.” .
As part of this directive, the league says all non-player employees (called level 1 and level 2 employees) are expected to be vaccinated unless they have an underlying medical or religious reason for not doing so.
Level 1 employees include coaches and coaches and Level 2 employees include general managers, assistant coaches and employees of football operations. The note states that any employee who refuses to do so without an approved reason will not be allowed to access the “football only” restricted area and will not be able to work with players directly or nearby.
While there is no mandatory vaccination for players at this time, the note tells teams to report weekly on the number of employees who have been vaccinated. They are said to be actively working with the NFLPA on a set of protocol changes that would be applied to clubs when vaccination levels reach a certain threshold that would allow them to loosen established protocols due to the pandemic. That would mean they could relax everything from quarantine restrictions to cafeteria and locker room use.
The league also encourages teams to hold vaccination briefings for players, families and staff to address any questions they may have.
“Educate your employees and communicate to them the labor benefits of vaccination,” the note says.
The NFL has also been instrumental in vaccinating the general public. Recently, at the annual meeting, the NFL reported that more than 1.5 million doses have been administered at the club’s facilities. Tuesday’s note encourages teams to continue using their stadium or training facilities to vaccinate employees, players and their families during “vaccination days” or something similar.
“The overwhelming consensus among medical and public health experts is that the most effective way for someone to avoid the risk of getting Covid-19 and the risk of infecting others is to get vaccinated,” the note concludes.