Why It’s Not Possible For The Covid Vaccines To Contain A Magnetic Tracking Chip That Connects To 5g
Though the Supreme Court banned vaccines in 1776 to further control the spread of smallpox, General George Washington continued to secretly mandate vaccines for troops who were entering Philadelphia and hadnt yet been infected by the disease, which eventually helped conquer the epidemic.
American soldiers have gotten vaccinated during major conflicts since the American Revolutionary War and continue to cooperate in a vaccination routine required by the U.S. military against more than 20 diseases such as flu, tetanus and cholera.
Federal Government Attempting National Mandate
While cities and states have long had the power to implement vaccine mandates, its unclear if the federal government can. According to the Congressional Research Service, a sort of think tank providing Congress with legal and policy analysis, except in certain limited circumstances, including in the immigration and military contexts, no existing federal law expressly imposes vaccination requirements on the general population.
The federal government does have authority in certain areas that would support executive action to fight COVID. Congress could also effectively create a mandate by stipulating that states must require vaccines in order to receive certain types of federal funding. It seems the administration is going to test its authority.
On Thursday the president announced vaccine requirements that could affect up to 100 million Americans. Its not about freedom or personal choice, its about protecting those around you, Biden said in prepared remarks.
For starters, all federal workers and on-site contractors must be vaccinated. The President had previously stated that masking, socially distancing, and regular testing would be an option. The civilian workforce, separate from the military, numbers over 2 million. Mandatory vaccinations are moving ahead for the additional 1.4 million active-duty troops.
Today, I laid out my new plan to combat COVID-19 and boost vaccinations. Watch as Press Secretary Jen Psaki breaks it down:
READ MORE:
Who Opposes The Mandate
Since the White House announced federal COVID-19 vaccine mandates affecting roughly two-thirds of the US workforce, or up to 100 million people, it’s received backlash from congressional Republicans, as well as state and local officials.
Republican governors have threatened to fight the administration’s new policies. Washington Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the senior Republican on the House of Representatives committee overseeing health policy, said Biden “is using fear, control and mandates.” The Republican National Committee has vowed to sue the Biden administration over the vaccine mandate.
A report from the CDC on Sept. 17 shows that unvaccinated people were over 10 times more likely to become hospitalized or die from COVID-19, according to data from April through July: “Getting vaccinated protects against severe illness from COVID-19, including the delta variant.”
Some companies that fall under the new vaccine mandate are facing challenges and questions about compliance and implementation of the policy, according to the Wall Street Journal. For example, businesses have to figure out who will be responsible for covering the cost of testing unvaccinated employees and whether they can authorize exemptions.
Also Check: Do I Have To Prove I Have Been Vaccinated
Requiring Employers To Provide Paid Time Off To Get Vaccinated
To continue efforts to ensure that no worker loses a dollar of pay because they get vaccinated, OSHA is developing a rule that will require employers with more than 100 employees to provide paid time off for the time it takes for workers to get vaccinated or to recover if they are under the weather post-vaccination. This requirement will be implemented through the ETS.
Keep An Eye On A New Rise In British Cases
Pedestrians wearing face masks enter Oxford Street tube station in London, Friday, Aug. 6, 2021.
Time and again, we have seen the trends that show up in the U.K. show up in the U.S. a few weeks later. We saw the delta variant rise there, then here. A month or so ago, the British infection rate dropped and there is reason to hope this weeks numbers in the U.S. might, too. The 14-day new case average was down 6% over the weekend.
But now the U.K. is seeing a new unexpected rise in new cases.
More than 8,000 people in the UK were in hospital with Covid on Wednesday the highest figure for nearly six months leading to fears of a resurgence in the virus ability to cause serious illness and death among the population.
By the way, the U.K.s health secretary said yesterday that his country will not turn to vaccine passports to gain entry to restaurants, shops or bars. Thats a big change from the governments plans.
Also Check: What Age Should Child Get Hpv Vaccine
States That Are Banning Covid
At least 20 states with Republican governors, including Arkansas, Florida and Texas, prohibit proof-of-vaccination requirements. That means businesses, schools and local government institutions can’t enforce a vaccine mandate. The prohibitions went into effect through either legislation or executive orders.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott earlier this month issued an executive order banning all state entities, including private employers, from enforcing vaccine mandates.
Some governors are trying to prevent private employers, as well as the state, from requiring vaccines, according to the National Academy for State Health Policy. Some are also trying to prevent the use of vaccine passports, which show proof that you’ve been vaccinated against COVID-19.
For more information, here’s what to know about breakthrough infections among the fully vaccinated. Also, here’s what we know about the delta plus variant.
The information contained in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as health or medical advice. Always consult a physician or other qualified health provider regarding any questions you may have about a medical condition or health objectives.
Requiring Vaccinations For All Federal Workers And For Millions Of Contractors That Do Business With The Federal Government
Building on the Presidents announcement in July to strengthen safety requirements for unvaccinated federal workers, the President has signed an Executive Order to take those actions a step further and require all federal executive branch workers to be vaccinated. The President also signed an Executive Order directing that this standard be extended to employees of contractors that do business with the federal government. As part of this effort, the Department of Defense, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Indian Health Service, and the National Institute of Health will complete implementation of their previously announced vaccination requirements that cover 2.5 million people.
Read Also: When Did They Start Giving The Meningitis Vaccine
There Are Some 80 Million Americans Who Havent Received Their Covid
The president doesnt have the power to order everyone to be vaccinated. What he has done instead is a far more targeted, and legally more secure, approach. He was careful to try to tie each of the sectors he was requiring vaccination to to some preexisting hook of federal authority.
If he had just said everybody needs to do it, the Supreme Court almost certainly, on the basis of the NFIB case, would have said no.
A year ago, I would have said sure thing, slam dunk, but reading the way the courts have gone in the last nine months or so since the Supreme Courts first COVID-19 decision after Justice Barrett joined the court, Im not quite so sure. There are questions now where they would not have been questions nine months ago.
How Can The Federal Government Mandate A Vaccine
The requirement for large companies to mandate vaccinations or weekly testing for employees will be enacted through a forthcoming rule from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration that carries penalties of $14,000 per violation, an administration official said. The White House did not immediately say when it would take effect, but said workers would have sufficient time to get vaccinated.
The rule would also require that large companies provide paid time off for vaccination.
Read Also: Is Gardasil A Live Vaccine
Will More Organizations Require A Vaccine In The Future
Its likely. Mr. Friedman, who anticipates that more businesses will require vaccinations in the future, maintains that the legal precedent for mandating vaccines is already there, its just up to these entities to decide to act on it.
Its not a legal decision, he said. Its a political and economic judgment that these companies are making.
Is There A Legal Precedent For Requiring Vaccination
There is, Jacobson v. Massachusetts, . The case itself was about a vaccination mandate.
In the early 1900s, smallpox outbreaks were fairly frequent and many people had been vaccinated earlier as children, but needed to be vaccinatedas their immunity waned. The state of Massachusetts passed a law that gave authority to local boards of health to make a decision at any given moment in response to an outbreak that smallpox vaccination should be mandatory for all residents of their local area if in the opinion of the medical experts who were serving on the board it was necessary to protect the public’s health.
The city of Cambridge made that determination. They then went through the effort of outreach to get everyone vaccinated. When they came to Henning Jacobson, he objected. He argued that vaccines are ineffective. He argued that they don’t prevent transmission. And he argued that they were harmful.
The court described those arguments as not seeking a medical exemption, but rather reciting the alternative views that differ from medical consensus and that those arguments did not warrant an exemption exemption from the requirement to be vaccinated.
Read Also: What Age Does A Child Get Chickenpox Vaccine
A Plea For Pregnant Women To Get Vaccinated
A health worker administers the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to a pregnant woman in Montevideo, Uruguay, Wednesday, June 9, 2021.
Mississippi State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs says his department is investigating eight pregnant women who died from COVID-19 in the past four weeks. All eight were unvaccinated.
Dobbs said his state has seen a doubling of the rate of fetal demise, or the death of the baby in the womb after 20 weeks. Its been a real tragedy, he said.
The CDC says pregnant women are at a higher risk for severe COVID-19 symptoms, and the CDC recommends they get vaccinated.
Your Boss Probably Can Require You To Get Vaccinated
Employment relationships in the United States are typically at-will, meaning that an employee can be fired at any time and for any reason, even if that reason is completely arbitrary. If you have an at-will relationship with your employer, your boss can fire you because they dont like your haircut. Or because they dont like what you had for breakfast last Tuesday.
Or, for that matter, because you refuse to get a Covid-19 vaccine.
The general rule, in other words, is that your employer can fire you for any reason unless some outside legal force a federal or state law, or maybe an individual or collective bargaining contract between you and your employer intervenes to give you additional job security. And there is no federal law prohibiting employers from requiring nearly all of their employees to get vaccinated.
That said, some federal laws may allow a small number of workers to seek an exemption from their employers decision to mandate vaccination.
- The Americans with Disabilities Act, for example, may allow people with medical conditions that prevent them from being vaccinated to gain such an exemption.
- The Civil Rights Act of 1964 permits people with religious objections to vaccination to seek an accommodation from their employer.
Also Check: What Are The Vaccines For Babies
Where Vaccination Is Mandatory With No Testing Option
Federal employees and contractors that work with the government face renewed vaccine mandates and will no longer have the option of regular Covid testing.
“If you want to work with the federal government and do business with us, get vaccinated,” Biden said. “If you want to do business with the federal government, vaccinate your workforce.”
Health-care workers also face strict mandates. The president has ordered all health-care facilities that receive federal Medicaid or Medicare funding to mandate vaccines for their workforces with no testing option.
Previously, the Biden administration mandated vaccines only for employees at U.S. nursing homes receiving federal funding. Some states, including New York and Maine, had already mandated vaccines for health-care workers.
The new rules will affect more than 17 million health workers at more than 50,000 hospitals and health-care facilities across the U.S.
“If you’re seeking care at a health-care facility, you should be able to know that the people treating you are vaccinated,” Biden said. “Simple, straightforward, period.”
The president also ordered all staff at Head Start programs run by the federal government to be vaccinated. The order extends to schools run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Department of Defense, affecting about 300,000 people in total, according to Chalkbeat, a news organization that covers education.
What About Employee Groups That Are Represented By Unions Must A Vaccination Requirement Be Agreed To At The Bargaining Table As With Almost Any Other Part Of A Labor Contract Or Could Employers Unilaterally Require It By Claiming It As An Emergency Measure
The question about unions is an interesting one. Can an employer unilaterally impose a mandatory vaccine policy? The answer is, it depends. A vaccine requirement is a change in employee working conditions that traditionally require unions to agree to the bargaining table. In other words, an employer could not unilaterally require vaccination as a requirement for continued employment. There are, however, exceptions. For example, suppose the union has agreed to waive its right to bargain over health and safety policies. In that case, an employer can unilaterally impose mask and vaccinate mandates without getting a union agreement. It is worth noting that these types of waivers are fairly common practice in many industrial settings.
Similarly, an employer can unilaterally impose a vaccine mandate if the employer can show that the union has waived the right to bargain over a particular topic through past practice. For example, suppose it is common for an employer to impose new health and safety work rules without bargaining with the union. In that case, that practice might allow the employer to implement a mandatory vaccination policy unilaterally. There are several pending lawsuits in which teamsters have challenged employer vaccine mandates. It will be interesting to see how courts interpret the scope of an employer’s ability to impose these health requirements without union agreement.
Also Check: Can An Employer Ask If You Have Been Vaccinated
Is It Legal Considerations Or Political Concerns Stopping President Biden From Issuing A Nationwide Vaccine Mandate
I think it’s a combination of the two. Actually, there are different constraints, not based on individual rights, but based on federalism and also separation of powers. What I do think we’re likely to see is some incentives and conditions on things like participation in Medicare for hospitals and maybe skilled nursing facilities, nursing homes. But that’s very different from the kinds of mandates that we’re seeing employers adopt and that we’re seeing at least a couple of local jurisdictions consider for patrons of certain businesses.
What If You Dont Comply With Vaccine Requirements
If you decline to get the COVID-19 vaccination for reasons other than those related to religious or disability purposes, your company may choose to no longer employ you. Your specific situation will depend on your companys guidelines and requirements.
Some companies will want to ensure your status. They may require you to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination or have employees complete weekly submissions of a COVID-19 test.
Guidelines change and update constantly. Its important to check your company or schools requirements to ensure you stay prepared.
Also Check: Do I Need A Prescription For Pneumonia Vaccine
Requiring All Employers With 100+ Employees To Ensure Their Workers Are Vaccinated Or Tested Weekly
The Department of Labors Occupational Safety and Health Administration is developing a rule that will require all employers with 100 or more employees to ensure their workforce is fully vaccinated or require any workers who remain unvaccinated to produce a negative test result on at least a weekly basis before coming to work. OSHA will issue an Emergency Temporary Standard to implement this requirement. This requirement will impact over 80 million workers in private sector businesses with 100+ employees.
Can Governments Mandate Vaccination
The position of governments at national or state and territory level is nuanced.
Public authorities have the ability to implement policies that make vaccination mandatory for discrete purposes. For example, the Commonwealth No Jab No Pay policy makes eligibility for certain social security payments dependent upon vaccination. State-based No Jab No Play policies limit access to childcare services.
These policies allow for a limited number of approved exemptions at the national level, with some variation at state level.
Government may legitimately pursue such policies for public health reasons, and may do so in rolling out a COVID-19 vaccine. Governments cannot force vaccination on individuals who chose to refuse it, as acknowledged in the Australian COVID-19 Vaccination Policy. However, they can effectively punish people for refusal as with No Jab No Pay with incentives for vaccination then working as forms of compulsion.
It is also important to distinguish between individual healthcare and public health. In Australia, informed consent, whether express or implied, is an essential pre-requisite of individual healthcare treatment. Administering medical treatment in the absence of informed consent exposes healthcare professionals to both civil and criminal liability. The requirement of informed consent protects an individuals right to bodily integrity.
However, this power relates to individual cases and cannot form the basis of a blanket policy.
Don’t Miss: What Is The Flu Vaccine Called