Consider This from NPR - Pfizer's Fully-Approved Shot Opens The Door To More Mandates

Episode Date: August 25, 2021

New York City, New Jersey, Goldman Sachs, and the Pentagon all imposed new vaccine requirements in the days following the FDA's full approval of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine. Public health officials — and the President — hope more mandates will follow. But some businesses are trying a different approach to encourage vaccination. NPR's Andrea Hsu visited one offering $1,000 bonuses to vaccinated employees. Meanwhile, Delta airlines announced unvaccinated employees would face a monthly surcharge. And some are arguing that airline passengers should be subject to vaccine requirements, too. Juliette Kayyem spoke about that with NPR's Noel King — originally aired on Morning Edition. In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment that will help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for NPR and the following message come from Carnegie Corporation of New York, working to reduce political polarization through philanthropic support for education, democracy, and peace. More information at carnegie.org. No more emergency use authorization. In the days since Monday's announcement that the FDA had fully approved Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine, This is a game-changing moment. We've been waiting for this for a long time. The practical effects are becoming clear. New York City Department of Health will be issuing an order

requiring all staff in the New York City public schools to be vaccinated. In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a new mandatory vaccine policy for school staff. In New Jersey, All school personnel have until October 18th. Republican Governor Phil Murphy did the same and then some. Additionally, I'm announcing the same vaccination policy for all state employees as well. At the Pentagon, spokesman John Kirby said,

So now that the Pfizer vaccine has been approved, the department is prepared. Vaccines would be mandatory for all service members. These efforts ensure the safety of our service members and promote the readiness of our force, not to mention the health and safety of the communities around the country in which we live. CVS Health and Chevron announced that vaccines would be required for some employees. Goldman Sachs issued a mandate for on-site workers and clients. And one of the largest public universities in the U.S., the Ohio State University, said that all students, faculty, and staff must be fully vaccinated by November.

This comes one day after Pfizer's vaccine was fully approved by the FDA. One student on campus told the local NBC station in Columbus it didn't seem like a big deal. Mandatory vaccines in schools, after all, are not a new concept. Well, they basically require vaccinations for other diseases and viruses. So, I mean, I think it was only a matter of time. Consider this. It may be only a matter of time until vaccine requirements are not the exception, but the rule in more and more places around the country. From NPR, I'm Adi Cornish. It's Wednesday, August 25th. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies.

Send, spend, or receive money internationally, and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the WISE app today or visit wise.com. T's and C's apply. Over this last year and a half, the world's been through a lot. So on this season of the StoryCorps podcast, we'll hear stories reminding us that even when times are hard, we can still begin again. Listen to our new season wherever you get your podcasts. It's Consider This from NPR. Even before the FDA approved Pfizer's vaccine this week, vaccination rates were going up. Nationwide, we've gotten a total of six million shots in arms in the last seven days. That's the highest seven-day total in over a month and a half. White House

COVID-19 coordinator Jeff Zients said Tuesday the numbers have been especially strong in four states with the lowest vaccination rates. In Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi, more people got their first shots in the past month than in the prior two months combined. That increase also coincides with the Delta surge hitting those states hard, but their vaccination rates are still relatively low. In Mississippi, for instance, just 43 percent of the eligible population is fully vaccinated, compared to the national average of 60 percent. In some states, the number is closer to 70 percent. So yeah, there's about 85 million Americans that are still on the fence, have not yet gotten that first dose. Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health,

told NPR this week public health officials hope the FDA's full approval of the Pfizer shot will nudge more people off the fence. Full approval means the FDA looked at some 340,000 pages of clinical trial data, real-world data, and inspected manufacturing facilities, and that they concluded the vaccine meets high standards for safety and efficacy. Biden administration officials have signaled the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines should be approved soon, too. As that happens, public health officials hope it will be harder and harder for vaccine hesitant people to see shots as new or experimental. The hope of many of us is that this will be a

motivation for those folks to decide to go forward because polls had said that was an issue for at least, oh, three out of 10. And now the three out of 10, I hope they're listening right now, will decide to go to vaccines.gov, find out where the closest place is to get their immunization and do it today. But for people not motivated to act on their own, the approval also opens the door for more mandates. Although in strict legal terms, the FDA's decision is not necessarily a game changer. Courts had already upheld federal rules giving employers the power to require vaccines, even under emergency authorization. And some big employers, United Airlines, Tyson, had already announced they were moving in that direction. On Monday, President Biden urged more employers to do the same.

If you're a business leader, a nonprofit leader, a state or local leader who has been waiting for full FDA approval to require vaccinations, I'm calling you now to do that, require it. But some businesses have been hesitant to issue requirements. NPR's Andrea Hsu has this story of one company taking a different approach. Walk onto the floor of the Dr. Bronner's Soap Factory and you're greeted by a pleasant and pungent aroma. Smells like peppermint in here. Peppermint bar soap is getting boxed up and ready to be shipped out. Nearby, Alice Gomez and Maria Ramos are hand-filling travel-size bottles of cherry blossom liquid soap the workers here are wearing masks they undergo weekly covid testing and now the

bosses want everyone to be vaccinated gomez already is she got her first shot back in february february and march the second oh wow Oh, wow. Yeah, totally. But her teammate Maria Ramos? Not yet, she says. Dr. Bronner's is famous for its counterculture roots. It's now a major soap manufacturer with some 300 employees, about 200 of them on site at its headquarters in Vista, California. The company's public-facing employees, the event marketing team, for example, are required to be vaccinated, but for the rest, it's voluntary. David Bronner is the company's CEO. Because it's Dr. Bronner's, that stands for Cosmic Engagement Officer.

Totally respect all the companies and institutions that are mandating. I think that's really great. It's not our choice, but we feel like we're going to get to virtually the same place with the path we're taking. And the path they're taking is giving out $1,000 bonuses. We figured it was a very compelling number that you would have to really be in your anti-vax beliefs to forego it. So why not a mandate? Well, Bronner says he didn't want to create bad vibes and ill will by forcing the vaccine on anyone. And he could afford this massive incentive. Sales of their soap and hand sanitizer exploded last year. Across the country, there is now an

urgency to getting workers vaccinated, but how to get there is up for debate. Even among airlines, after United announced its vaccine mandate, Southwest, American and Delta have said we're not doing that. And of course, while some states have banned vaccine mandates, others are going all in. Take Washington state. We have essentially what is a new virus at our throats. That was Washington Governor Jay Inslee last week announcing all state workers and contractors must be vaccinated if they want to keep their jobs. We are past the point of thinking we can test our way to safety here. Vaccine mandates have been challenged in court,

but so far they've stood strong. Unions have been split on mandates, even within their membership. Here's Richard Lewis Brown on a Zoom call with members. He's president of SEIU Local 1000, representing 100,000 state workers in California. In our union, we have two groups, those for the vaccination and those against the vaccination. Well, guess what? I love you both. Brown himself got vaccinated, but last month, he sent a cease and desist letter to California's HR department over its vaccine requirements. He says they're a violation of civil liberties. For those who say you must get vaccinated, well, who are you to tell somebody what to do with their body? I thought people had the right to choose what went inside their body. At least that's what

you claim. Back at Dr. Bronner's, I ask Maria Ramos if she's worried about the shots. Yeah, a little bit. I think about it. She'll think about it. The $1,000 bonuses have not gone out yet. That'll start next month. NPR's Andrea Hsu. For some businesses trying to encourage vaccination, a carrot seems like the best option.

For others, a stick. Delta Airlines announced Wednesday that employees on the company health plan who fail to meet its vaccine requirement by November will face a surcharge each month of $200. The airline said in a statement that on average, employees who wind up in the hospital with COVID-19 cost the company $40,000 each. Delta said the monthly surcharge, quote, will be necessary to address the financial risk the decision to not vaccinate is creating for our company. There's an emerging argument for airlines to go even further on vaccine mandates, not for employees, but for customers. And the reason why is because we have to begin to assert burdens on those who are choosing not to be vaccinated. Juliette Kayyem

at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government served as Assistant Secretary for Homeland Security under President Obama. Recently, she wrote a piece for The Atlantic arguing for vaccine mandates for anyone who wants to fly, a mandate imposed not by airlines, but by the federal government, which has the power to regulate air travel and already uses that power to require masks on flights. Kayim spoke to Noelle King on NPR's Morning Edition. Sometimes industries actually want government to act so that they don't have to make the decision. I think they see the politics of what's going on and they just, they don't want to play in it.

But certainly this is something that the federal government could do. There is a large group that says the government telling me what I have to do with my body before I can get on a flight that I can pay for is big government at its worst. Yeah. Yeah. Well, welcome to reality. The other times that you went on an airplane, I mean, come on. I mean, you're giving up your name, your number. I mean, you're giving up your birth date. You're having x-rays go through your system. You can't drink your water. You can't smoke if you're still doing that. We already live in that world. And this is just an additional requirement for vaccination for the privilege, because that's what it is, of flying or getting from point A to point B, is consistent with all sorts of other

safety floors that the federal government has done across almost every aspect of your life. And I gather you'd make that same argument to someone who says, I don't want to have to carry a vaccine passport, for example. It's my personal medical history. I think there's this notion of freedom that has animated the unvaccinated, or at least the defense of the unvaccinated. And so I want to be clear here. People are still free to say, no, this is not someone grabbing you on the corner and sticking a needle in your arm. You can still have those freedoms that people are talking about. But the unvaccinated now must know there is a cost, a cost that can't just be borne by the vaccinated. All right, let me ask you about a last group of people.

I can imagine airline CEOs and executives and some of their thousands and thousands of employees thinking, if we do this, if we make this demand, it will mean fewer people flying and we are having enough problems in this economy. This is bad for American businesses. Right, so the proposal would be put that deadline out far enough in advance.

So October or November with the holidays coming up, put the proposal to have vaccination requirements. And why can the federal government do this? So first of all, let's just start from the facts. We're about 20% down on domestic airline travel right now. So the industry is not back up to normal. How do you fill that void? Well, part of it is to get people more comfortable about moving around. So the business decision now is, will I benefit more from more

people being vaccinated in terms of the bottom line, rather than try to plow my way through another wave? And maybe it's good that I'm not a doctor, right? I mean, in the sense that we've been hearing for months and months, you know, follow the science, follow the science. And I get that. And I follow the science. But, you know, at some stage, we just have to look at it and go,

look, we're sort of done with pretty pleas and people's feelings and how they feel about freedom and how they feel about liberty. You know, the vaccinated have feelings too, right? The health professionals facing another now avoidable breakdown of our health care capacity have feelings. Our kids who can't get the vaccine have feelings, too. All I know is that the virus has no feelings and it could care less about ours. Juliette Kayyem, a former assistant secretary for Homeland Security under President Barack Obama.

She's the faculty chair of the Homeland Security Program at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Adi Cornish.