Two Republican governors who oppose President Biden’s new COVID-19 vaccine mandate believe the requirement will only toughen the resolution of those unwilling to get the blow.
“This is a very serious deadly virus and we’re all together trying to get a higher level of vaccination in the population,” Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson told NBC News’ “Meet the Press.” “The problem is that I’m trying to overcome the resistance, but the president’s actions in one term toughen the resistance.”
He said vaccination requirements for schools usually come from the state level, not the federal government.
“And so it’s an unprecedented assumption of the authority of the federal mandate that really alters and divides the country. It divides our partnership between the federal government and the states, and it increases the division in terms of vaccination when we should all be together trying to increase the uptake of vaccination, ”Hutchinson said.
Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts said the shooting should be a personal choice and noted his administration has been providing vaccine information and providing encouragement.
“But it should be a personal choice for health. This is not something the government should demand and someone should not have to choose between keeping their job and getting an arm’s length, “Ricketts told Fox News Sunday.
“I mean, it’s just wrong. I’ve talked to people, to a number of people who have told me, ‘If they made me get the vaccine, they’ll fire me. I won’t, I won’t. »
Biden announced last Thursday that the Department of Labor will force companies with 100 or more employees to require all employees to be vaccinated or tested weekly.
Companies that fail to do so could receive fines of up to $ 14,000.
“It’s not about freedom or personal choice,” Biden said in a speech at the White House. “It’s about protecting yourself and those around you: the people you work with, the people you care about, the people you love. … We can’t allow these actions to make it difficult to protect the great most Americans who have done their part and want to come back to life normally. “
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says about 75.7 percent of American adults have received at least one vaccine and that 64.9 percent are fully vaccinated.
According to their data, 99 percent of hospital admissions between Jan. 1 and Aug. 30 have been among the unvaccinated.
In Arkansas, 49.9% of adults are fully vaccinated against COVID. That figure is 53.4 percent in Nebraska, according to the respective state health departments.
Ricketts said the Nebraska Attorney General will talk to his counterparts in other states about coordinating legal action against vaccine warrants.
“And as long as we see what these rules are, we will be able to know exactly how we can challenge them in court. I am also talking to my colleagues across the country, other governors who feel like me, and we will work on other strategies, ”he said.
Chris Wallace of Fox News questioned Ricketts about the polio vaccine and how it largely eradicated the virus worldwide.
“If the polio vaccine is right for parents and they have to comply with it to send their children to school, why not for many people, not just children, the vaccine against this disease?” He asked.
Ricketts responded, “I think this is very different from polio which has very devastating effects and we certainly know that if you’re over 65 or older, that is, 83 percent of our deaths in Nebraska go come on, we know this is really devastating. “
“Therefore, it is a question of compensating these risks. And the risk of that is such when this is not mandatory. Again, the whole goal of everything we’re doing – at least in Nebraska as we do – is to make sure we preserve hospital capacity and we’ve done it successfully here, even without masking the whole state. mandates and without making vaccine passports, ”he added.