Ban the Ban
This week the Senate passed a bill (over my strongly stated objections) to prevent anyone—government or private—from requiring a COVID vaccine. Ever. Under any circumstances.
Mandates are very serious and should be used sparingly. I think some of the federal government's recent efforts went too far. But a blanket ban goes way too far the other direction.
SB 156 wouldn't just stop the government from issuing a mandate to the general population (which nobody has attempted anywhere in America.) It also means a city-owned hospital couldn’t require employees to get vaccinated. That’s a risk to patients, who’ll be more likely to be exposed to COVID when they come to the hospital for a broken arm, or cancer care. They're less likely to find the hospital fully staffed, because COVID outbreaks are worse among the unvaccinated, and the isolation period is longer.
When a business owner can’t require vaccines they’re forced to risk their own health to keep the doors open. And many businesses choose to require COVID precautions so they can safely serve their customers. That goes double for tourism businesses here in Southeast. The Canadian government just dropped their testing requirement to cross the border, but they kept the vaccine mandate. If SB 156 passes the House, bus and train trips from Skagway won't be able to restrict ticket sales to people who can cross the border. Perhaps the bill's sponsor thinks they'll be able to easily drop unvaccinated passengers by the side of the highway or the tracks? How a cruise ship might get in and out of Vancouver or Victoria, BC with unvaccinated passengers I can't begin to guess.
And even beyond the mandate debate, the bill would forbid any sort of government incentive to get a vaccine. The successful CBJ-Chamber of Commerce gift card program, or offering extra help to people experiencing homelessness, would have been illegal.
The debate on the bill quickly devolved into disproven theories about vaccines being secretly harmful. And there was something about, apparently, the Anglo-Soviet Treaty of 1942? I won't even pretend I followed that part...
Bottom line: I don’t support a blanket government mandate for the COVID 19 vaccines. But banning any COVID vaccine requirements—or even incentives—is bad for public health and bad for business. I'm counting on my colleagues in the House to stop this bad bill from becoming law.
