Vaccine Mandate Helps People Feel Safe
By: John Semmens
US Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh says “President Biden's insistance that everyone be vaccinated is essential to restoring economic growth. Right now too many people are afraid to go back to work out of fear of catching COVID. Once everyone is vaccinated this fear will be eradicated. This is not a mandate. It is a reminder to do the right thing if you want to keep your job if you're an employee or be fined if you're an employer.”
Walsh dismissed emerging evidence of the vaccines' dwindling effectiveness as “beside the point. We're asking everyone to remember when they were children and how the opportunity to cuddle with a favorite teddy bear or doll could banish fear of monsters. Even though we adults recognize that stuffed toys couldn't possibly fend off monsters, the belief that they could made us feel secure. Today, we're asking all loyal Americans to place the same confidence in the vaccines to protect them from disease. The majority have already done this voluntarily, but a disloyal minority threatens to break the spell of confidence that is required if we are to defeat COVID.”
”If anything, the current opportunity for all employers of 100 or more workers to enforce a vaccination protocol doesn't go far enough,” the Secretary complained. “That's why I have ordered OSHA to include all employers, no matter how few workers they have, to compel their employees to get vaccinated. We all must share the same faith in the government's plan to battle this disease. Once we achieve this unanimity victory will be at hand and the fundamental transformation of this country begun by President Obama will be complete.”
To help incentivize compliance, the Department of Labor is also drafting regulations that will bar those who are fired for refusing to be vaccinated will from being eligible to receive unemployment compensation. “Willful disobedience is insubordination,” Walsh argued. “Unemployment benefits are meant only for those who lose their jobs through no fault of their own—like a recession—not for employees who won't follow orders.”
Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) heartily endorsed OSHA's efforts to compel universal vaccination, saying that “there's only one thing that’s gonna get us through this completely and that’s to get people vaccinated. I wish everyone would just voluntarily obey the President's wish that they get vaccinated. Since some won't fines and firings are our last resort short of forcibly holding them down and jabbing them with hypodermics.”
