Facebook Owner to Mandate Covid-19 Vaccine Boosters for Office Workers

“Boosters provide increased protection,” a Meta spokesman said. “Given the evidence of booster effectiveness, we are expanding our vaccination requirement to include boosters.”

More companies are now putting such requirements in place, or offering incentives for workers to get additional doses.

Bank of America Corp. said last week it would donate $100 to a food bank or hunger-relief organization for every U.S. employee who shows proof of a booster through the end of January. Executives at Jefferies Financial Group Inc. told staff in early December that the company would require everyone entering its offices or attending a company event to have a booster administered by Jan. 31, unless they are ineligible to receive one.

Industrial real-estate company Prologis Inc. recently began requiring employees in the U.S. to get the Covid booster within 30 days of their eligibility to receive the shot, unless they have a medical or religious exemption. Other companies, including meatpacker JBS USA Holdings Inc. and Benchmark Senior Living LLC, an operator of assisted-living facilities, have hosted booster clinics at company sites to make it easier for employees to get another shot.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hasn’t changed the definition of what it means to be “fully vaccinated,” but in a press briefing last week, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said the agency is now recommending individuals stay “up to date” once they become eligible for additional doses. For policy makers, changing the definition of what it means to be fully vaccinated to also include boosters would be complicated because it would affect vaccine mandates that are being challenged in courts, The Wall Street Journal previously reported.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said last week that healthcare workers in the state would be required to get boosters to better protect them against Covid-19. California Gov. Gavin Newsom also said last month that state healthcare workers and employees in high-risk, congregate settings would be required to get a booster by Feb. 1.

Meta had planned for its U.S. offices to fully reopen in late January. The company previously told the most of its U.S. staff that they can do their jobs remotely, if desired, or temporarily push back a return by an additional three to five months.

The latest delay means a number of employees at Meta, and other white-collar companies, will have worked remotely for about two years since the World Health Organization’s 2020 pandemic declaration. Many companies had hoped to bring workers back in January, but the rapid rise in Covid-19 cases over the past few weeks has led many employers to again close offices, or to indefinitely pause reopening plans. Executives across the corporate landscape have said that it will be increasingly difficult to bring people back to offices after employees have grown so accustomed to doing their jobs from their homes.

“We understand that the continued uncertainty makes this a difficult time to make decisions about where to work, so we’re giving more time to choose what works best for them,” said Janelle Gale, a vice president of human resources at Meta.

Bank of America has encouraged employees at its U.S. offices to work remotely in recent weeks, amid rising Covid-19 infection rates nationally. Decisions on bringing people back in person would be largely made on a regional basis, Chief Executive Brian Moynihan said in an interview. “It’s all dependent on the path of the virus,” he said. “We are basically sort of week to week.”

At industrial giant Honeywell International Inc., executives are watching case counts, positivity rates and hospitalizations to determine when it may be safe to bring more of its corporate employees back into its U.S. offices. “Until we see that come down, we’re really not going to ask our employees to return to the office,” said Darius Adamczyk, the company’s CEO.

—David Benoit contributed to this article.