CNN is warning Americans that it is “about to get much harder not to be vaccinated” — a caution which follows the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) expressing the need to ramp up its messaging as the American people question its motives and science behind its latest edicts.
This week, President Biden blamed unvaccinated Americans for the CDC’s updated guidance, requiring vaccinated people to wear masks in indoor areas “of substantial or high transmission.”
“We have a pandemic, because of the unvaccinated and they’re sowing enormous confusion,” Biden said. “If those other 100 million got vaccinated, we’d be in a very different world.”
Millions of Americans have expressed concerns over the vaccines, all of which have yet to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Some have cited a lack of trust in the expedited vaccine development, while others worry about adverse side effects — both short-term and long-term, the latter of which remains largely unknown. Others have cited a lack of trust in drug companies and the government itself. Ultimately, a majority of unvaccinated Americans have indicated that they remain solid in their decision to forgo the vaccine as the Biden administration attempts to grapple with it. An internal CDC document obtained by the Washington Post this week revealed the federal agency’s internal panic, expressing the need to ramp up its messaging to urge Americans to get the shot.
The CNN article, however, contends it may not even be necessary for the federal government to do something as radical as mandating the vaccine, suggesting it may become nearly impossible to participate in everyday life without one if employers, stores, and hospitals impose requirements one by one.
“The federal government may not try to force people to get the Covid vaccine,” the report reads. “And it may not have to.”
“Your employer, the restaurant where you want to eat, the concert venue you want to visit or the country where you want to travel may do it for them,” it adds.
While some states, including Texas and Florida, have taken action to bar vaccine passports and such mandates, private companies, primarily in Silicon Valley, are beginning to mandate inoculation. The federal government is also taking action, imposing vaccine rules for hundreds-of-thousands of federal workers while essentially encouraging private companies to follow suit.
“In addition to providing incentives to encourage vaccination, it’s time to impose requirements on key groups to make sure they’re vaccinated,” Biden said Thursday.
“I’d like to see them continue to move in that direction,” he said of private businesses.
“Local communities can do that, local businesses can do that, it’s still a question whether the federal government can mandate the whole country,” he said of a widespread vaccine mandate. “I don’t know that yet.”
Some surmise widespread vaccine mandates ride on full FDA approval, which is what CNN identified as the “next step”:
What could turbocharge requirements is full FDA approval of the vaccines. The military is being exempted from Biden’s vaccine requirement and leaders have suggested they will wait for full FDA approval before requiring soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines to get the shot.
Many companies may be waiting for that green light as well.
“You get the FDA to say, ‘It’s final, it’s approved,’ and I can guarantee you all the places I’m involved in, if you don’t get vaccinated you will get fired,” Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone told CNBC on Wednesday. He sits on the board of trustees of the NYU Langone Medical Center. “You have an obligation to your fellow man to protect him as well as yourself.”
But until then, Biden said he will continue to promote vaccine mandates around the nation. “I’m going to keep at it,” Biden told reporters Thursday. “I’m going to be talking about it around the country.”
Texas is the latest state to take action. On Thursday, Gov. Greg Abbott (R) signed an executive order barring cities from implementing mask or vaccine requirements.
Story cited here.
