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The majority of federal workers and contractors who do business with the government are now required to get vaccinated, according to an executive order President Biden signed Thursday. New York Times reporters Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Washington correspondent covering health policy, and Apoorva Mandavilli, who covers science and global health, talk about Biden's new plan to fight the delta variant, which also puts pressure on private businesses and states to enact stricter vaccination and testing policies.
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President Joe Biden: This is not about freedom or personal choice. It's about protecting yourself and those around you.
Brian Lehrer: That obviously was President Biden yesterday anticipating some of the pushback from Republican lawmakers and maybe other libertarians as he put forth his most sweeping and aggressive plan to get more Americans vaccinated. Here's some of what's in it if you haven't heard the details. According to executive orders, companies with 100 or more employees must mandate vaccines or commit to weekly testing. All federal workers must be vaccinated. Most healthcare workers in hospitals, ambulatory settings, and home health aids will now have to get vaccinated or lose their jobs.
The President said he'll require all employers to offer paid time off for vaccination and he called on all states to adopt vaccine requirements for all school workers. He said he'll make at-home test kits more affordable, expand testing availability overall, and double fines for not wearing a mask while traveling. That is just some of what the President announced yesterday. With me now to dig into more of this are New York Times' reporters, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Washington correspondent covering health policy, and Apoorva Mandavilli who covers science and global health. Apoorva, Sheryl, welcome back to WNYC.
Apoorva Mandavilli: It's pleasure.
Sheryl Gay Stolberg: Thank you.
Brian Lehrer: Apoorva, up till this point, Biden had been fairly conservative on vaccine mandates, not generally willing to exercise that power. What changed?
Apoorva Mandavilli: I think what changed is that we really have not seen as much of an uptick in vaccinations as we needed to and in the meantime, the numbers of cases and hospitalizations and deaths have just kept going up. It's just become very, very clear that the current rate of vaccinations is just not going to be enough to keep this virus at bay.
Brian Lehrer: Sheryl, the President didn't miss words directing his ire at the 80 million or so eligible unvaccinated saying, "Our patience is wearing thin and your refusal has cost all of us." I think he was channeling a lot of what a lot of vaccinated Americans feel. I'm sure you hear it as you move around. You know what some vaccinated people are saying about the unvaccinated these days, I'm curious, how much of an impact do you think these new measures or his new attitude might have?
Sheryl Gay Stolberg: I think it's unclear. The vaccine and COVID generally has been very polarizing in our country. There's some reason to think that President Biden telling his opponents what to do will only make them dig in further. That's actually why he went to a mandate. He tried everything else. He tried cajoling, he tried pleading, he tried nicely, he tried incentives. States offered a million-dollar lottery if you would just get vaccinated.
I think he realized that he was at the end of his bag of tricks and so he had to be a bad parent and say, "You know what? I asked you to do this. You wouldn't do it. Now I'm going to make you do it." We will see resistance. We're already seeing Republican governors saying it's unconstitutional, we're going to sue. We're seeing unions say we would like this to be a subject of collective bargaining. It's a matter of employee rights. I think that it will not be as easy as simply saying, you must get vaccinated. There will be hurdles ahead.
Brian Lehrer: Sheryl, let me stay with you for a follow-up question since you're the policy reporter. Apoorva is more the science reporter. Under the plan, private sector businesses that have 100 or more employees will have to require vaccination or mandatory weekly testing. That's an order from the President on private companies. Does the President have the power to impose such a rule on private businesses?
Sheryl Gay Stolberg: Legal experts say that President Biden is on very solid ground. Companies are required to abide by federal health and safety standards. We all know about OSHA, the workplace safety organization. OSHA will enforce this rule as it enforces other rules to guarantee the safety of workers. He is, according to numerous experts that I've talked to, on solid ground. That doesn't mean there won't be lawsuits.
Brian Lehrer: Or what? In other words, what happens to companies that refuse to comply assuming this policy is upheld?
Sheryl Gay Stolberg: I think what happens is what happens in any situation where there's an OSHA violation. Let's say you're forcing employees to work in a factory and the heat is 100 degrees or whatever. OSHA comes in, they issue a citation, and then, I believe, it goes through either some administrative proceeding to get the company into compliance. If that doesn't work, I think they can go to the court though I'm not a labor lawyer so don't hold me to that.
Brian Lehrer: Apoorva, for you as a health and science reporter, maybe it's worth reminding people of what's at stake. We're back up to 1,500 COVID-related deaths per day in the United States or thereabouts and almost every single one is coming in an unvaccinated person.
Apoorva Mandavilli: That's right. Those numbers have actually been continuing to go up. Despite all of the attention on breakthrough infections, it is actually extremely clear that the vast, vast majority of hospitalizations and deaths are happening in unvaccinated people. Any of the breakthrough infections that you're hearing about are mostly happening in older people and immunocompromised people. It is absolutely crucial to get to these younger unvaccinated people who are circulating the virus and the older people who are really at high risk. We have to do that not just in the short term to cut down these numbers but even in the long term because this virus is not going anywhere, it is here to stay.
Brian Lehrer: You've done reporting on people who won't get the vaccine. I think for a lot of people who have already gotten the shots, the refusal of healthcare workers sounds especially perplexing. The fact that that seems to be a population that's refusing vaccines about at the rate of anybody else despite how exposed they get to people who presumably might have COVID. Do you have insight into that? Could these new rules start a wave of either mass vaccination or mass retirement in the healthcare sector?
Apoorva Mandavilli: I think the mass retirement is a real possibility. There are some surveys showing that as many as a third of healthcare workers are contemplating retiring from the profession. Some of them are close to retirement age anyway, and others may get pushed out by this. Really there is no alternative because when you have somebody with COVID coming into the hospital and the vast majority of these people have vulnerabilities, they're coming in because they are already frail in some other way, it is absolutely imperative for the hospitals to protect them.
This is why we have all of these rules. This is why we ask hospitals to make sure that patients are protected and safe. This vaccine mandate is not really all that different than asking doctors to wear gloves or taking sterile precautions. It's really along those lines if you think about it. Ultimately, the hospitals are responsible for keeping their patients safe.
Brian Lehrer: They're anticipating a lot of retirements in New York City among teachers with the vaccine requirement that Mayor De Blasio is imposing. We're going to ask him about that in our upcoming segment. Is there going to be a teacher shortage in New York City, the school year as a result of his vaccine mandate? We can take a few phone calls for Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Apoorva Mandavilli from The New York Times on President Biden's new COVID rules. 646-435-7280. 646-435-7280. Lawrence in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Lawrence?
Lawrence: Hi. Is it true that the postal workers are not going to be mandated to be vaccinated? If that's so, how come?
Brian Lehrer: Do you know, Sheryl?
Sheryl Gay Stolberg: I actually inquired about this last night. Lucky for me, I have a friend who represents the Rural Carriers Union. He's a lawyer and he wrote me last night saying that he believes the postal workers are exempt. Then he wrote me again this morning saying he is not so sure in his words, "A lot of rumors out there." I'm sorry, that's a very unsatisfying answer but I don't know. This is, in fact, one of the things that I was going to be looking into today to try to sort this out.
Brian Lehrer: Wait, aren't postal workers federal employees so it would be simple yes, that they would be covered under the President's order? Apparently not.
Sheryl Gay Stolberg: Here's the thing about that. The President's order covers executive branch employees so that's all federal agencies. It's not employees of Congress or the courts. The postal service is an independent agency of the executive branch and that independent agency status is what I think is creating some murkiness about whether or not they're covered.
Brian Lehrer: Edward in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Edward.
Edward: Hi. It's interesting on 9/11 people were stereotyped, Muslims were stereotyped and scapegoated because people were afraid of them. They saw them as terrorists because we saw Muslims striking on 9/11. We were told all these things that Bloomberg did, all these things that Bush did were wrong. Now anti-vaxxers or people who are just against an mRNA vaccine, not all vaccines, for example, are stereotyped as well, you see.
How is that any different? How is it different mandating certain people who might have many various reasons for not taking the vaccine? Furthermore, there was a study by AP just a few weeks ago that said vaccinated people can carry as much virus as others, so you can still transmit the disease. The virus does not care if you're vaccinated. Maybe your symptoms will be less, but the transmission is just as great and the viral load is just as great.
Brian Lehrer: Edward, I'm going to put that question to Apoorva in a minute. That's a legitimate science question. On the stereotyping, it's not stereotyping to impose health requirements that protect members of the community.
Edward: The same thing was said about the Jews. The Jews supposedly carried typhoid.
Brian Lehrer: Oh, boy.
Edward: Black people, you weren't supposed to drink from fountains in the south because Blacks carry disease.
Brian Lehrer: Yes, except that we know that there's a real outbreak and that the lack of vaccination among a quarter or so of the population is a reason that we are not ending this outbreak or this pandemic in this country so it's such a specious argument, and it's offensive, frankly, to Jews and Blacks and other people who you bring up. Apoorva, let me ask you his science question because there is a real question there in that part of his call. We know that even vaccinated people are transmitting the virus at rates that we hoped would not be the case when the vaccines first came in. How does vaccination stop transmission of the virus?
Apoorva Mandavilli: This idea that vaccinated people may be just as likely to transmit was the case several weeks ago. That was based really on an observation that very early in infection, vaccinated people can carry just as much virus in their nose and throat as unvaccinated people do. Since then, there have been several studies and scientists have been able to show that even though at that very early stage people may have just the same amount of virus regardless of vaccination status, in somebody who is vaccinated, their immune system kicks in very quickly and gets rid of that virus.
If an unvaccinated person is infectious for, let's say, 10 days, the vaccinated person is infectious for just 2 or 3 days. You're talking about a much narrower window, and you're also talking about the immune system getting rid of the vast majority of the virus very quickly. This idea of them being the same is only true for a very short period of time. Overall, a vaccinated person will have much fewer chance of infecting somebody else than someone who's unvaccinated.
Brian Lehrer: Interesting. Sheryl, how much resonance do you think a caller like we just got has in Republican America or let's say on the Republican side of the aisle in Congress?
Sheryl Gay Stolberg: I think sadly, the caller does have some resonance on the far right side of the Republican Party, but you are seeing increasingly Republican leaders, including Mitch McConnell, urge people to get vaccinated. Many Republicans have seen the Delta variant rip through their communities and kill their constituents and overwhelm their hospitals in their districts, and they are concerned. While we do see those kinds of extreme arguments, I would say on the fringe, I don't think those kinds of arguments will fly with mainstream Republicans, particularly what the caller said about Jews and Blacks. I thank you for calling him out on that.
Brian Lehrer: Apoorva, another science question before we run out of time. Relating to the President's announcements yesterday, there was a lot about vaccination, but there was a lot about testing. There's a very open door in most of what he announced to testing as an alternative to vaccination. We've had several guests recently, Dr. Michael Mina from Harvard, Ed Yong from The Atlantic, who say the country's been putting too many of its eggs in one basket, the vaccination basket.
Testing is very effective, especially if it's a rapid test just before you enter a public place. For example, according to Dr. Mina, if it's used on a widespread enough basis and with enough frequency. The testing is really a key to stopping the pandemic. I'm curious your quick take in our last 30 seconds or so as a science reporter on that and where it fits in to the potential effectiveness of the President's orders.
Apoorva Mandavilli: Testing and masking are both going to be much more important in the shorter term because vaccines take weeks for us to see an effect, and so we really do need to have more of those things in place if we want to see a quicker impact. The President did make some strides towards that, but the weekly negative test alternative to vaccination is not really going to work because we know the Delta acts quickly, and so we're going to need much more rapid testing and much more of it available for us to have any kind of impact.
Brian Lehrer: We leave it there for now with New York Times reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Washington correspondent covering health policy and science, and global health reporter, Apoorva Mandevilla. Thank you both so much for joining us today.
Apoorva Mandavilli: Thanks for having us.
Sheryl Gay Stolberg: Thanks, Brian.
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