FB workers don't need vaccine to return to work: Zuckerberg (Lead)

San Francisco, Dec 11 (IANS) Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has told his more than 50,000 employees that they will not be required to get vaccinated before returning back to work when the company reopens offices in July 2021.According to a report in The Daily Beast, the Facebook CEO said this during an all-hands meeting "when a Facebook employee asked about how the forthcoming vaccine will affect their return to in-person work".Most Facebook employees are currently working from home.Zuckerberg reportedly told the employees during the meeting on Thursday that "some workers have already returned to their buildings in countries with lower rates of Covid-19 and in other limited circumstances".A Facebook spokesperson told The Verge: "Regardless of when vaccines become available, we've given our employees the option to work remotely at least until July 2021"."Our US offices remain closed and we don't expect them to open before the COVID-19 vaccines are widely available".Zuckerberg said "he is confident in the vaccine and looks forward to getting one himself"."Once we return to the office, we will have a number of protocols in place that we expect to include testing, social distancing, wearing masks and other best practices."Facebook offices are shut since March worldwide and in May, the company announced an optional permanent work-from-home policy.Zuckerberg laid out a detailed remote-working plan to make half of his workforce work from home by 2030. According to him, about half of Facebook employees would work from home five to 10 years from now.
--IANS na/