Biden’s Decision to Expand Vaccine Mandates Will Help Us Beat Back COVID Surge - Horowitz

Tuesday, September 14, 2021

Rob Horowitz, MINDSETTER™

Taken together, the executive actions President Biden unveiled last week will significantly up the percentage of Americans who are fully vaccinated. This is the single most important step we can take to beat back the surge of new COVID-19 cases, stemming from the far more contagious Delta variant.  Feasting on the 30% or so of us eligible for the vaccine who remain unvaccinated, the Delta Variant is leading to a disturbing increase in hospitalizations and deaths.

Drawing on the broad federal regulatory authority spelled out in the Occupational Safety and Health Act, Biden is requiring all employers with more than 100 employees to ensure their workers are vaccinated or tested weekly. Vaccinations will also be required for all federal workers and the millions of contractors that do business with the federal government. Additionally, more than 17 million health care workers at hospitals and other health care facilities that participate in Medicare and Medicaid will now be required to be vaccinated. A previous executive action made vaccinations mandatory for all members of the armed services.

While these new policies have generated the predictable outrage from Republican governors-- many of whom lead states that have strict vaccine requirements for other infectious diseases-- and corners of the conservative media echo chamber, the plain fact is that vaccine mandates work.  Examples provided by the White House underscore the point: “At the beginning of August, when Tyson Foods announced its requirement—only 45% of its workforce had gotten a shot. Today, it stands at 72%, meaning half of Tyson’s unvaccinated workers have now gotten a shot—well ahead of the company’s November 1st deadline. After United Airlines announced its vaccination requirement, more than half of its unvaccinated employees went out and got vaccinated with weeks left to go before the deadline. In Washington State, the weekly vaccination rate jumped 34% after the Governor announced requirements for state worker.”

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Even before these new requirements, some of America’s largest corporations were already requiring employees to be vaccinated.  In fact, the business community, by and large, welcomed the Biden Administration's actions, which give companies the ability to say to any vaccine-hesitant employees that they are simply implementing federal policy. In fact, Josh Bolten, CEO of the Business Roundtable, an association of chief executive officers of America’s leading companies, issued the following statement of support: “Business Roundtable welcomes the Biden Administration’s continued vigilance in the fight against COVID. America’s business leaders know how critical vaccination and testing are in defeating the pandemic, which is why so many have invested resources in encouraging and incentivizing their customers and employees to get vaccinated, including providing paid time off. Over the past several weeks many companies have decided to implement a vaccine mandate for some or all of their employees, a decision we applaud.”

The need for these expanded national vaccine requirements is confirmed by a new large-scale CDC study, which found the unvaccinated are 10 times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 and 11 times more likely to die of the disease than the vaccinated.  Among the other reasons for these new policies is that the fertile soil for the virus created by the still high numbers of people who are unvaccinated leads to more breakthrough infections for people who are vaccinated and ups the odds of generating new COVID-19 mutations as well. 

Beginning with George Washington’s decision as commander in chief of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War to require that soldiers be vaccinated for Smallpox, there has been a recognition that there is a responsibility to the community when faced with a deadly infectious disease to be vaccinated. When people refuse to be vaccinated, they not only endanger themselves; they put others at risk and make it more difficult for all of us to put the pandemic in the rearview mirror. That is what makes whether or not to be vaccinated more than just a personal decision. It's why schools throughout the nation require a series of vaccinations without which a child cannot attend.

While President Biden initially was reluctant to use his authority to require vaccinations, the devastating impact of the Delta variant and the pervasive campaign of disinformation that has left too many Americans reluctant to be vaccinated has resulted in this essential and welcome course correction.

As Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University School of Public Health, told The New York Times in declaring his support for the expanded mandates, “It’s going to fundamentally shift the arc of the current surge. It’s exactly what’s needed at this moment.”

Rob Horowitz is a strategic and communications consultant who provides general consulting, public relations, direct mail services and polling for national and state issue organizations, various non-profits, businesses, and elected officials and candidates. He is an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island.

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