White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain on Tuesday touted vaccine mandates, asserting they make “all of us safer” the day after President Joe Biden said the United States can likely go back to normal when 98 percent of Americans are vaccinated.
“Vaccine requirements work — making all of us safer,” Klain said, sharing a snippet of a New York Times article reporting on preliminary data, which suggests the vaccination rate for New York hospital employees rose to 92 percent on Monday — the day of the deadline for healthcare workers to receive their first dose:
New York healthcare workers were required to get their first shot by Monday, September 27 “with limited exceptions for those with religious or medical reasons.”
Speaking to Eyewitness News, one unnamed longtime New York nurse, who was terminated from her job, explained that her opposition is not “just about vaccines.”
“It’s about human rights as well,” she stressed.
People participate in a rally and march against COVID-19 mandates on September 13, 2021, in New York City. President Joe Biden has ordered mandates for federal workers as a growing movement has emerged of Americans against both the vaccine and the work mandates to get a vaccine. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
“For the people that wanted to take the vaccine and these people I think should have taken the vaccine. I’m not against the vaccine,” she said, adding that people “have the right to choose to take it.”
“I should have the right to choose not to if I feel like it’s not good for me,” she added.
President Biden, however, has expressed overt support for vaccine mandates, directing the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to draft a rule forcing private businesses with over 100 employees to require coronavirus vaccines or implement weekly testing. Yet, in July, White House press secretary Jen Psaki explicitly said vaccine mandates were “not the role of the federal government.”
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