Republicans governors retaliate against Biden vaccine mandate
pharmafile | November 5, 2021 | News story | Medical Communications |
Republican governors are expected to sue in response to the Biden administration’s requirement that US employers ensure workers are tested or vaccinated for COVID-19, according to Reuters.
President Joe Biden has said that he will enforce the mandate starting in early January, and senators have said that this decision encroaches on civil liberties. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, regarded it in a tweet as “illegal” and “unconstitutional”. Texas is among the Republican-led states which have issued executive orders or enacted laws that ban COVID-19 vaccine mandates, or have prevented employers from seeking an employee’s vaccination status.
The Biden administration’s regulation was implemented as a rarely used emergency rule from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the federal workplace regulator.
Both House Chief Medical Adviser Anthony Fauci, and Rochelle Walensky showed their support of the mandate, citing the 745,000 US COVID-19 deaths, the vast majority of which are among the unvaccinated.
Vaccinations have been proven to protect individuals from severe COVID-19 and death, and they provide more robust and durable immunity than that gained from previous infection. A recent CDC study found that people with “natural” immunity through infection were five times more likely to develop COVID-19 compared to people who were fully vaccinated. “We’ve had 745,000 deaths from this disease and we’re continuing to have about 75,000 cases every single day,” Walensky said recently in a hearing, according to ABC News.
“We know the most disruptive thing in our workforce is to have a COVID outbreak and to have workers in that workforce come down with COVID infection, severe disease, and in some cases death. Vaccination as we’ve seen, decreases your risk of infection by sixfold, decreases your risk of hospitalization and death by tenfold even during this delta surge.
“So there’s absolutely a public health priority to get people vaccinated and to continue the important prevention and mitigation strategies including masking to keep them safe.”
Lina Adams
