Enough already — it’s time to follow New York’s lead on vaccine mandates

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio stepped out on the national stage last week and declared that as of Aug. 16, the city will require proof of at least one dose of an approved COVID-19 vaccine for anyone who wants to eat inside any of the city’s more than 24,000 restaurants, workout in a gym, or attend a public performance.

Enough already with tiptoeing around the issue of mandates! Vaccines are the most effective tool we have to stop the spread of the deadliest pandemic in more than 100 years, a scourge which has already killed more than 613,000 Americans and at least 4 million people worldwide. Last week alone, the U.S. recorded an average of nearly 94,000 new cases per day, 48 percent higher than the preceding week. 

Following New York’s lead, we urgently need a national vaccine mandate to stop the pandemic and save lives. Unfortunately, since we live in a federalist system of government, the federal government is actually precluded from issuing or enforcing a national vaccine mandate for the general public. It can only require federal employees to be vaccinated. And President Biden has already done just that.  

Getting to a nationwide vaccine mandate will depend on our ability to create a complex mosaic of requirements imposed by states, cities, businesses, universities and school districts. No easy task.

And unfortunately, at this point, any legitimate, science-based public strategy to change the minds of hardcore vaccine refusers seems increasingly futile. Common sense public health messages have been badly adulterated by toxic politics, outright ignorance, and outlandish conspiracy theories promulgated by the internet and social media.

More challenges lie ahead. Last year’s interruption of the educational trajectory for millions of children represents a serious threat especially to the kids who were already at most risk for academic failure prior to the pandemic. Getting children back on track will require a return to in-person classes as quickly as possible — and that ought to include vaccine mandates for teachers and staff working with young and unvaccinated children. With COVID-19 still raging, how else will we be able to keep them safe when schools reopen just weeks from now? 

Outbreaks in schools could sicken children or even make them silent carriers of existing or new virus variants, bringing infections home to vulnerable adults. 

Given all of the obvious challenges to fighting COVID-19, here are a few strategies worth trying:

First, every business, organization, university, event space, airplane and train should require proof of vaccination as a requirement of entry. “No vaccine? No entry!” should be the mantra everywhere. In other words, if the government can’t or won’t mandate the only truly effective means of tamping down the pandemic, municipalities and other organizations and institutions should do what needs to be done. In other words, let’s promote a thousand points of vaccine mandate. It’s time for the private sector to step up.

Second, to protect our children, every teacher and adult employee of every school in America must have a no-exception rule: You must be vaccinated to work anywhere near unvaccinated children. Children over 12 who are eligible for the shot should show proof of COVID vaccination to get into school. We often hear that coronavirus testing can be an alternative to getting vaccinated. But it just isn’t because people can indeed become infected in between tests. (That said, tests can be a useful adjunct that can be deployed in a variety of settings to double check on the possibility of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic individuals slipping through the cracks.)

Third, the only exemptions to a vaccine requirement should be legitimate, documented medical justification. No religious exemptions should be permitted; they’re just too easy to game. And we’re dealing with a deadly pandemic. Endangering fellow citizens for personal religious reasons is not OK.

Perhaps the most infuriating rationale for opposing any mandate — vaccines or even wearing masks — to fight the pandemic is the nonsensical distortion of “personal freedom” as a reason to resist the vaccine. It goes like this: “It’s my body, my risk and I should not be told that I must get vaccinated.” Of course people can take risks, but not if your behaviors put others at risk, violate existing laws or offend societal mores. 

You can’t drive drunk, yell “fire” in a crowded theatre, open the door in an airplane in-flight, scream racial epithets, run naked down the street, fail to put your kids in school or fail to ensure that they get the usual required school entry immunizations. Similarly, no one has a “right” to spread COVID-19. 

It’s time for public health, political and private sector leaders to get serious about mandating the best tool we have to stop the pandemic. If we don’t figure out how to get the vast majority of us vaccinated, and soon, we’ll surely be facing a dismal future of recurrent surges fueled by yet unknown coronavirus mutations presenting new threats we can only begin to imagine.

Dr. Irwin E. Redlener (@IrwinRedlenerMD) is the founding director, National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University’s Earth Institute as well as professor of pediatrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and a senior research scholar. He is also a public health analyst for NBC/MSNBC and the author of, “Americans at Risk: Why We’re Not Prepared for Megadisasters and What We Can Do Now,” and “The Future of Us: What the Dreams of Children Mean for 21st Century America.”