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Two Republican governors who oppose President Biden’s sweeping new mandate on the COVID-19 vaccine believe the demand will only toughen the resolve of those who don’t want to get the hang of it.
“This is a very serious deadly virus, and we are all together in trying to increase the level of immunization in the population,” Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson said on “Meet the Press” from NBC News. “The problem is, I’m trying to overcome resistance, but the president’s actions in a mandate harden the resistance.”
He said immunization requirements for schools generally came from the state level, not the federal government.
“And so it is an unprecedented assumption of the authority of the federal mandate that really disrupts and divides the country. It divides our partnership between the federal government and the states, and it increases the division in terms of immunization when we should all be together trying to increase the immunization rate, ”Hutchinson said.
Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts said the vaccine should be a personal choice and noted that his administration provided information about the vaccines and offered encouragement.
“But it should be a personal choice in health care. It’s not something the government should mandate and someone shouldn’t have to choose between keeping their job and getting hit in the arm, ”Ricketts said on Fox News Sunday.
“I mean, it’s just wrong. I’ve talked to people, a number of people who have said to me, ‘If they make me get vaccinated, I’m just going to be fired. I’m not – I’m not going to do it.
Biden announced last Thursday that the Labor Department would require companies with 100 or more workers to require all employees to get vaccinated or tested every week.
Businesses that do not comply can face fines of up to $ 14,000.
“It’s not about freedom or personal choice,” Biden said in a White House speech. “It’s about protecting yourself and those around you – the people you work with. , the people you care about, the people you love … We cannot allow these actions to interfere with the protection of the vast majority of Americans who have done their part, who want to resume normal lives.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 75.7% of American adults have received at least one vaccine injection and 64.9% are fully vaccinated.
According to his data, 99% of hospital admissions between Jan.1 and Aug.30 were among the unvaccinated.
In Arkansas, 49.9% of adults are fully vaccinated against COVID. That number is 53.4% in Nebraska, according to the respective state health departments.
Ricketts said the Nebraska attorney general will speak to his counterparts in other states about coordinating legal actions against vaccine warrants.
“And as we see what those rules are, we will know exactly how we can challenge them in court. I also speak with my colleagues across the country, other governors who feel what I think, and we will work on other strategies, ”he said.
Chris Wallace of Fox News asked Ricketts about the polio vaccine and how it has largely eradicated the virus around the world.
“If the polio vaccine is acceptable to 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 replied, “I think it’s very different from polio which has very devastating effects, and we certainly know that if you’re older, 65 and over, that’s where 83% of it came from. our deaths in Nebraska. , we know this is truly devastating.
“And so, it’s about balancing those risks. And the risk for that is such that it is something that we should not impose. Again, the whole point of everything we do – at least in Nebraska, how we do it – is to make sure that we preserve the capacity of the hospital and we have done it successfully here, even. without making mask statewide mandates and without making vaccine passports, ”he added.
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