Officials at St. Joseph's Health announced Wednesday the hospital will no longer enforce COVID-19 vaccine requirements for health care workers.

In addition, job applicants, including former staff who may have left St. Joseph's when the vaccine requirement was implemented, are now eligible for exemption. The organization said they are actively contacting former employees, encouraging them to consider returning.

"While vaccination remains one of the most important tools in advancing the health and safety of patients and colleagues and promoting the efficiency of workplaces, we are now in a different phase of our response - with COVID absenteeism, hospitalizations, and deaths at the lowest levels that we have seen throughout the pandemic," Kelly M. Quinn, manager of public relations and network communications at St. Joseph's Health, said in a statement. "Although the requirement for a vaccine mandate has no longer been deemed necessary by regulating bodies at the federal and state level, vaccines remain strongly recommended as safe and effective at preventing serious illness or death from COVID-19.

Our colleagues will continue to use appropriate infection prevention and control measures, including hand hygiene and use of required PPE. We thank our patients, colleagues, and community members for their continued support and dedication to the safety of one another."

The action comes a week after New York state health officials signaled a requirement that health care workers receive the COVID-19 vaccination will end as pandemic-era rules more broadly are expiring. That rule was first put in place in August 2021 by then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo. After COVID-19 emergency orders lapsed in 2022, the state Department of Health adopted the requirement as a formal regulation. Individual health care facilities are still able to continue to implement their own internal policies for COVID-19 vaccination.