Allegheny County officials are asking all businesses to require their employees to be vaccinated against covid-19 by Jan. 1.

“Jan. 1 will be a year since these vaccines have been available,” Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald said during a news conference Wednesday. “We know how safe they are, we know how effective they are, and we know how they’ve stopped the spread of this deadly disease.”

Neither Fitzgerald nor the county’s health director, Dr. Debra Bogen, can force private businesses to require employee vaccination, but individual employers can enact such a requirement.

Last month, 174 people in the county died from covid-19, officials said. It was the third-highest monthly total since the pandemic began, surpassed only by December 2020 and January 2021 — before vaccines were widely available.

Bogen said data collected by the health department continues to show that those who are hospitalized and dying are unvaccinated. Deaths among people who are vaccinated, she said, are mostly seniors with underlying conditions and people with weakened immune systems.

“It is time for everybody to get vaccinated,” Fitzgerald said, noting that about 740,000 residents are fully vaccinated, 90,000 are partially vaccinated and about 140,000 have received a booster shot. He called those who have been vaccinated patriotic.

“Who wants to send their child to a school where the teacher is unvaccinated?” Fitzgerald asked. “Who wants to go to a restaurant and be waited on by a waiter or waitress that is unvaccinated? Who wants to sit in an office among people who are unvaccinated spreading this deadly disease?”

Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto has mandated vaccination for all city employees, a requirement that is being challenged by the unions representing police and firefighters. Three police officers have died from the virus since late September.

In Allegheny County, a mandate requiring all executive branch employees to be fully vaccinated is facing a legal challenge from the union representing the Allegheny County Police Department.

Bogen said case counts in Allegheny County “remain stubbornly high,” and “there is no indication the numbers will drop any time soon.”

While case counts have dropped elsewhere in the country, she said, cases here have not.

“Frankly, that worries me,” she said. “Why haven’t our cases dropped like they have in other parts of the country? Unfortunately, we don’t have any special reason other than we have let our guard down and the delta variant is a highly contagious virus.”

She said it is as though people have decided they are done with the pandemic and have abandoned easy, common-sense protection measures, such as masking and distancing.

“Wishful thinking does not make it so,” she said. “We may be done with the virus, but, unfortunately, the virus is not done with us or our loved ones or our community.”

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