Newman: Minnesotans should be outraged over vaccine mandates

Friends and neighbors —

You likely read recently about President Joe Biden’s sweeping mandates on employers and employees. The mandates require businesses to track vaccine status and require testing for unvaccinated workers, with significant fines for businesses that don’t comply.   Our own governor, Tim Walz, praised the president, calling these mandates the “right move.” 

Let me tell you: a vaccine mandate on millions upon millions of Americans is NOT the right move. The governor is wrong. The president is wrong. It is an offensive insult to core American values like freedom and privacy. 

I am also deeply troubled about the inconsistent application of the mandate. For example, illegal immigrants are not required to be vaccinated. But United States Citizens are. 

This is not about the validity of the vaccine. I am vaccinated. It’s the choice I made for myself and my family. But that is a deeply personal choice that everyone has a right to make for themselves — it should never be mandated by the government. Nobody should ever be forced to sacrifice their career over a vaccine, nor should the government ever require businesses to demand this sensitive, personal medical information from their employees.

President Biden and Gov. Walz should be ashamed, and Minnesotans should be outraged.

Scott

BACKGROUND INFORMATION:

  • According to a tweet from Minnesota DEED Commissioner Steve Grove, the changes would affect 4,800 businesses and 1.4 million workers in Minnesota. 
  • The Minnesota Nurses Union responded to the mandate saying, “We question the timing of the impending vaccine mandates and believe these mandates will continue to exacerbate staffing shortages.” 
  • KSTP reported Patti Cullen, President and CEO of Care Providers, a statewide association for nursing homes, said, “We are totally vaccine supportive, but we already have a chronic workforce crisis in our communities. I think the repercussions are really serious for us,” after Biden imposed a federal mandate for nursing home employees to be vaccinated in August. 
  • Education Minnesota, the teacher’s union, asked for policy decisions on vaccination be made at a local level in August in a statement that said, “vaccination policies with the goal of persuading nearly all adults in schools to get vaccinated while accommodating the small number of educators who have valid medical or religious reasons for not receiving a COVID-19 vaccine.”