The coronavirus vaccine mandate implemented by his company in August 2021 has saved employees’ lives, said the CEO of United Airlines noted in a company-wide email distributed Tuesday, NBC News reports.

“Prior to our vaccine requirement, tragically, more than one United employee on average *per week* was dying from COVID,” Scott Kirby wrote to United’s 85,000.  “But we’ve now gone eight straight weeks with zero COVID-related deaths among our vaccinated employees — based on United’s prior experience and the nationwide data related to COVID fatalities among the unvaccinated, that means there are approximately 8-10 United employees who are alive today because of our vaccine requirement.”

One of the first major companies in the US to mandate vaccines, United fought court challenges to its employee requirement that everyone had to be fully vaccine no later than early October, requiring the first dose to be received by August 28th.  The company made exceptions for people with strong religious convictions against vaccinations and for people who have exclusionary medical conditions. 

When the October deadline approached, United announced that fewer than 600 risked termination for not having applied for an exemption or updating their online medical history.  The exact number of employees terminated was not released.

Kirby reported that 3,000 United employees currently report that they are infected with the coronavirus, but none of them are hospitalized.  Recently, during the current spike of cases from the Omicron variant, one-third of the airline’s employees at the major Newark airport had called in sick after testing positive or coming in close contact with someone who had tested positive.