Since the first COVID-19 vaccines became available in December, the push has been on. Get the shot to the medical personnel, to the most vulnerable, to the front-line workers. Get it to everyone over 65, over 55, over 18, over 12. Get teachers vaccinated and corrections officers and inmates.
The reason was clearly — and correctly — stated. The faster the vaccinations were completed, the faster the coronavirus pandemic could be put in the rearview mirror. The vaccines are safe, effective and a triumph of modern science. Pennsylvania is approaching the 70% threshhold of full vaccination for those over 18 — the point at which Gov. Tom Wolf has said the mask mandate would be rolled back.
Some legislators, however, are concerned about the question of proof. State Senate Republicans have introduced a bill that would prohibit governments and school districts from requiring a covid-19 vaccination for any sort of access. The legislation passed the Senate Health and Human Services Committee Monday by a vote of 6-4.
The bill would prevent any government agency from drawing a line in the sand requiring proof of vaccination.
The desire to protect people from being cut out of necessary and universal state-provided services is valid. But it is important to balance with the public safety.
Asking for proof of vaccination is nothing new. Anyone who has registered a child for school or daycare or summer camp has filled out the forms and handed over copies of vaccination records — or checked off the boxes that explained why vaccines weren’t administered for medical, religious or philosophical reasons.
Covid-19 does not have to be different. It is a serious illness that has to be addressed by the government, but just like a school educating a kid who never had a measles vaccine, there is no reason to deny services to someone who hasn’t had a coronavirus vaccine.
There is also no reason to discount the legitimate medical concerns of some of those who have not been vaccinated due to preexisting conditions or other issues. The vaccines in question, moreover, have emergency use authorization and not full Food and Drug Administration approval, which makes it hard to measure them with the same yardstick. That should also be taken into account.
But big changes are good times to review previous rules. There has not been a pandemic of the scope of covid-19 since the advent of widespread vaccination availability and policies, and therefore it makes sense to take a good look at what is demanded, how and why. Going forward it could prevent what has been one of the pandemic’s biggest problems — breakdowns in communication.
This is not a new concept. Legislative districts are redrawn every 10 years after a census because those once-a-decade counts show how things have changed. In the same way, acknowledging the seismic shift of the pandemic on existing vaccination policy is smart. But making it unnecessarily political isn’t.
— The Tribune-Review, Greensburg/TNS
