Time For Vaccine Mandates
615,000 of our fellow Americans are dead from COVID. Millions more have gotten sick or suffered the pain of losing family members and friends. Businesses have been shuttered and jobs lost, while our country has seen levels of economic dislocation that rival the Great Depression.
In response, U.S. taxpayers have spent well over $20 billion developing a range of life-saving vaccines to reduce future death, suffering, and loss. In addition, the government, the private sector, health care workers, essential workers, and first responders have come together in a heroic effort to distribute these miracle drugs to a public clamoring for relief.
Yet, in some ways, it feels like we’re right back where we started. Consider these facts:
L.A. County now reports 3,000 or more new confirmed cases per day of COVID-19 — primarily from the highly contagious and dangerous Delta variant. That’s up from approximately two hundred cases per day in mid-June. To put this into context, L.A. County has more than half as many confirmed cases today as the entire state of California had when Governor Newsom issued his stay-at-home order in March, 2020.
Why?
Because millions of eligible L.A. County residents simply refuse to get their shots.
We’ve all heard the excuses: Vaccines are “dangerous,” “experimental,” or “a conspiracy.” “My immune system is strong.” “I’m young and healthy, and even if I do get sick, I’ll be fine.” What about the threat you could pose to children and immunocompromised people?
This level of irresponsibility is breathtaking, especially when there is no shortage of good information to counter the dangerous misinformation that spreads through social media like COVID-19 itself. Educational PSAs run daily with facts about the importance of getting vaccinated. We’ve offered cash incentives, sweepstakes, lottery tickets, vacations, food, entertainment — you name it — to coax people into simply doing the right thing.
What about those of us who waited hours, even days, to get an appointment for a vaccination? We didn’t get money. We didn’t get free food or tickets to Dodger games. We did it because it was the right thing, the necessary thing, to do — to protect our friends, our loved ones, and ourselves.
We should be done with this virus. But, due to the negligence of far too many, the virus is far from through with us. And if we do not take strong action to reduce the spread of the virus now, we will face more severe restrictions down the road, including potential further mask mandates and even lockdowns.
We must not let this go on.
Yes, we live in a free country. We enjoy a hard-earned array of basic rights. But even those rights have limits. Our great freedoms come with great responsibilities, and one of those responsibilities is to help protect the health and safety of our fellow Angelenos, the ones who literally share our air.
I urge officials at every level of government to implement firm vaccine mandates. After a brief interim period to allow an additional opportunity for unvaccinated people to receive the vaccine, these mandates should include, but not be limited to:
- Requiring proof of vaccination in an array of indoor public places, including restaurants, bars, gyms and performance and event venues. No shots, no admission.
- Requiring ALL public employees be fully vaccinated, or face possible suspension or even termination, with appropriate exemptions. No shots, no job serving the public.
- Requiring ALL passengers traveling by plane to prove they are fully vaccinated, or, at the very least, that they are COVID-negative. No shots (or tests), no flight.
We are in the midst of a resurgent pandemic that threatens cases of breakthrough COVID for the vaccinated and a return to overwhelmed hospitals and a renewed economic shutdown for all of us. In this perilous moment, the least we can do to protect ourselves, our families and our fellow residents is to get a shot. Those who reject that responsibility should temporarily lose some of society’s privileges until their reckless behavior no longer endangers the rest of us.
Mike Feuer is the Los Angeles City Attorney.
