COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate Refusal Risks Public and Private Sector Employment

Healthcare and health insurance workers have been suspended for refusing the vaccine. Federal workers will soon be required to be vaccinated.

Summary

Vaccine mandates for the public and private sectors are surviving court challenges and may soon cost employees their jobs.

• In New York City, a request from a group of school employees to temporarily stop the city’s vaccine mandate for public school employees was denied.
• Elsewhere in New York, Northwell Health fired 1,400 employees who opted out of the mandated COVID-19 vaccine.
• Health insurance giant Kaiser Permanente suspended more than 2,000 employees who refused to get vaccinated for COVID-19.
• Southwest Airlines announced its employees must be vaccinated by Dec. 8 in order to remain employed.
• Guidance for the federal workforce’s vaccine mandate was released this week, detailing what medical conditions are eligible for exemption and delay.

• The New Republic sneered at objections to various local vaccine mandates by police unions, saying the reports of mass resignations is a reprise of similar threats after calls for criminal justice reform last year.
• The New York Daily News highlighted calls from the city’s politicians for Mayor Bill de Blasio to expand the school employee vaccine mandate to other city departments.
• NBC News ran an opinion column arguing a lack of competent doctors and trustworthy news is responsible for vaccine hesitancy among rural populations, blaming Facebook for “misinformation.”*
• Over the weekend, Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu inadvertently argued in favor of gutting one of the core tenets of Obamacare by saying those who “engage in riskier actions that increase health care costs” should pay higher health insurance premiums.

• The Washington Examiner highlighted criticism leveled by country music star Jason Aldean towards the school vaccine mandate in California, saying “Gavin Newsom makes those decisions for us?”, referencing COVID vaccination.
• Newsmax reported on the Department of Defense’s vaccine mandate for civilian employees, noting it is considerably sooner than the deadlines imposed by the services.
• Breitbart emphasized the results of a Florida poll in which a majority of respondents disagreed with the Biden administration’s efforts to force private sector vaccine mandates.

Author’s Take

*Many on the left will undoubtedly read the NBC News think piece sympathetically, believing in their superiority to those misguided and poorly educated rural rubes, while nodding in agreement that the solution is to spend more government money and enforce government censorship of social media.

Here’s the problem: What is their answer for the question of urban populations, like the various public sector employee unions or minorities who don’t traditionally vote Republican, not getting vaccinated?

They don’t have an answer, because their solution to rural problems actually has nothing to do with COVID-19 and everything to do with increasing the size and power of government. Even if inadvertently, that’s what the author revealed.

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© Dallas Gerber, 2021