Vaccine Mandates Finally Have Some Momentum

[marmar]

Vaccine Mandates Finally Have Some Momentum
By Matt Stieb


With the Delta variant causing deaths and hospitalizations to spike in unvaccinated regions of the United States, there has been a renewed effort, joined by some unlikely voices, to encourage Americans to get vaccinated. Amid this push — and fear of the Delta wave — the messaging appears to be having some effect. After stalling out for months, vaccination rates have gone up in several states hit hard by the virus in July. Throughout the U.S., almost 780,000 shots were administered on Sunday, up over 200,000 from the seven-day average just a week before. And with Delta threatening to launch yet another wave of cases this fall, some state and local governments, private employers, and at least one federal agency are now finally doing more to mandate their own firewalls of vaccination.

Just as one of the first real jolts of the pandemic began in the sports world, the momentum for vaccine mandates picked up with the NFL’s announcement last week that teams would face severe penalties for failing to vaccinate their players — including the forfeiture of games if a club experiences an outbreak among players who have not gotten the shot. Then on Monday, New York City mayor Bill de Blasio announced that all 340,000 municipal employees in the city must either be vaccinated or test negative for COVID on a weekly basis or more by the time schools open in mid-September. (That workforce includes the New York Police Department, which reported last week that it had administered shots to just 43 percent of its service members.) California, where 75 percent of eligible residents are vaccinated, also announced Monday that all public and private health-care workers and 246,000 state employees will need to show proof of vaccination or test negative weekly beginning next month.

These programs are clearly designed to drive more employees toward vaccination, while also offering a less convenient alternative of frequent testing. Adopting a hard vaccine mandate, on the other hand, remains a difficult proposition in the United States. Because COVID vaccines are still only approved by the Food and Drug Administration under emergency use authorization, it is difficult for state governments and private businesses to require their employees get vaccinated. As STAT News noted earlier this year, the “same section of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act that authorizes the FDA to grant emergency use authorization also requires the secretary of Health and Human Services to ‘ensure that individuals to whom the product is administered are informed … of the option to accept or refuse administration of the product.’” Full FDA approval of America’s three COVID vaccines may still be months away. Nevertheless, federal courts have recently upheld some employers’ decisions to require shots, including a federal judge in Texas dismissing a lawsuit from Houston Methodist Hospital employees fighting a vaccine mandate, and a federal judge in Indiana ruling that Indiana University could require students coming back to campus in the fall to get vaccinated. .............(more)

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/07/vaccine-mandates-finally-have-some-momentum.html

[Walleye]

1. My brother works at Drexel University. They are requiring proof of vaccination by next week

[appalachiablue]

2. Looks like a rush of shots now, keep it going!

K/R

[Skittles]

3. the people who don't get them, make them pay for the testing

yup

[marble falls]

6. Great idea. Some people do not appreciate anything they get for free. Even if it's a nominal $5.00,

... make them pay. They'll take these test results very seriously and think themselves into vaxxing.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

4. Covid Vaccines' Emergency Status Doesn't Bar Mandates: DOJ

Mandates are both legal and necessary. The vaccines' emergency status is not a barrier to mandates

Link to tweet

The Covid-19 vaccines’ status as an emergency product—which has fueled lawsuits against vaccination mandates—doesn’t prohibit employers, universities, or other entities from requiring inoculations, the U.S. Justice Department said.

The language in federal drug approval law cited by legal challengers only says that certain information should be provided to potential vaccine recipients, the department’s Office of Legal Counsel said in a memo seen by Bloomberg Law Monday.

Although the OLC memo isn’t binding authority and thus doesn’t guarantee court approval of a vaccine mandate, it provides a boost to employers and others that either have imposed such a requirement or are considering it.

The memo, dated July 6, became public as concern is growing that unvaccinated Americans are contributing to the rapid spread of the Delta variant of the coronavirus. It signals that the White House is beginning to embrace vaccine mandates, a sharp departure from the Biden administration’s earlier hesitancy on the subject.....

A federal judge threw out the Houston Methodist lawsuit, saying the language on emergency use products applies to powers and obligations of the head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, not a private employer. The federal judge who rejected an initial bid to block Indiana University’s mandate said the language directs HHS to establish conditions to allow for informed consent.

In the OLC memo, Justice Department lawyers said the plain language of the section on emergency use authorization, known as EUA, concerns only the provision of information to vaccine recipients. The FDA agrees that the section places no restrictions on the ability to require an EUA product, the memo said.

[dalton99a]

5. +1

https://aboutblaw.com/YNR