Greenville County Sheriff Hobart Lewis said on Saturday that less than half of his employees opted for the vaccination against COVID-19.
Speaking to members of the Greenville County Council, Lewis said that about 300 of the 650 officials in the Sheriff’s Office have been vaccinated against COVID-19.
Although Lewis said that all of his employees are eligible for the COVID-19 vaccines, he emphasized that his office does not have a mandatory vaccination requirement.
Who can get: Everyone in South Carolina aged 16 or older eligible for the COVID vaccine next week
“The start was very slow for us,” said Lewis in response to a question from County Councilwoman Liz Seman.
Lewis said that more of his employees chose to take the COVID-19 vaccines after seeing that their co-workers who received the vaccines did not experience any serious side effects.
He also said that a significant number of his employees developed immunity to COVID-19 after contracting the virus and recovering. Although Lewis said that four of his employees currently have COVID-19, he did not disclose the total number of cases in the Sheriff’s Office during the pandemic.
Seman said in an interview that he asked Lewis about the matter because “obviously vaccinations are on the rise right now.”
“It is important for the county to keep our employees healthy,” she said.
Seman said she was excited to learn that an increasing number of Sheriff’s Office employees are being vaccinated.
“It is such an individual choice to make,” she said. “But I also think that we have a collective responsibility to keep our community healthy.”
Sheriff Lewis: Vaccine hesitation is a national issue
In an interview with The Greenville News after his presentation to the County Council, Lewis said that some younger deputies are not concerned with getting COVID-19.
The Republican sheriff also said that the reluctance of other officials to get vaccinated is a reflection of a national trend.
“You have so much division now in this country and people don’t trust other people and some people think it is a scam, some people don’t believe that COVID is a real disease or that the vaccine is a real vaccine,” he said. “There are some people who believe that if you get the vaccine, you will be tracked in some way by the federal government.”
More: How South Carolina life sciences companies are impacting the COVID-19 vaccination campaign
Lewis said he strongly encouraged his employees to get vaccinated.
“You want people to take every precaution possible. The last thing you want is to put them in a harmful situation, “said Lewis.” I would like to see 100% of them take it. I believe in the vaccine.
“I was one of the first to do it,” he said. “I think it was important as an agency leader to get it.”
Kirk Brown covers government, growth and politics for The Greenville News. Contact him at [email protected] or on Twitter @KirkBrown_AIM. Subscribe to The Greenville News by visiting greenvillenews.subscriber.services.