The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) will require tens of thousands of its frontline healthcare workers to get a vaccine for the Chinese coronavirus, giving them two months to do so. Those who refuse risk losing their jobs.
Denis McDonough, the secretary of veterans affairs, affirmed on Monday that a vaccine mandate is simply “the best way to keep our veterans safe, full stop.”
The VA employs over 367,200 full-time health care professionals and staff, but the mandate is expected to apply primarily to “the most patient-facing” workers, according to McDonough. According to the New York Times, that topline number of employees includes 115,000 frontline health care workers, presumably who will be forced to get the vaccine. Workers will have the ability to appeal the mandate, citing medical or religious reasons, although McDonough said he is not sure what to expect.
“What I know is basically this is the most important step for us to take in terms of enhancing veteran patient safety,” he said.
According to the report, those employees will have two months to get the vaccine, and the clock starts Wednesday. Those who fail to comply risk losing their jobs, McDonough said, adding that he informed the White House of the mandate.
The majority of workers in the department’s healthcare centers have been vaccinated — 70 percent, per the Times. However, McDonough said the percentage needs to be higher.
“Our clinicians are arguing that we do need a higher number than that,” he said.
Interestingly, McDonough said he “did not know if any veterans had been sickened by workers in health care centers,” according to the Times.
The news coincides with dozens of medical organizations signing a letter demanding employers to require healthcare workers to get the coronavirus vaccine.
“We call for all health care and long-term care employers to require their employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19,” they wrote in the joint letter, contending that “existing COVID-19 vaccine mandates have proven effective.”
Democrats, meanwhile, have also begun to promote a vaccine mandate narrative. On Monday, for example, two Texas state lawmakers, both Democrats, promoted a quote from an online thread from Bob Wachter, chair of the UCSF Department of Medicine, who concluded that it is “time for vaccine mandates.”
Meanwhile, hundreds of veterans have experienced “serious” adverse reactions to the Chinese coronavirus vaccines, some of which include cardiac arrest and strokes, as revealed by documents obtained by Judicial Watch via an April 14, 2021, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
As Breitbart News reported:
The government watchdog requested the information on April 14. The documents include a section on adverse event reporting, which reports 24,585 cases as “non-serious” and 895 cases as “serious.” Serious events include 20 instances of cardiac arrest — all of which occurred in individuals who received one of the two mRNA shots — as well as 36 cases of cerebrovascular accidents (strokes), 15 cases of deep vein thrombosis, 10 cases of heart attacks, and 19 cases of pulmonary embolisms.
Eighty-one percent of Americans who have not received the vaccine yet say they will “probably” or “definitely” not get the shot. Of those, 45 percent say they “definitely” will not, and 35 percent say they “probably” will not. On the flip side, 16 percent say they “probably” will get the jab, while just three percent say they “definitely” will, indicating that the vast majority of those who have yet to get the vaccine are solid in their decisions.
A majority of likely voters believe it should be a “personal choice” to get the shot — not a mandate.
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