Newsom’s vaccine talk versus reality

It’s a recurring tendency of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s to issue broad proclamations for attention and then fail to sufficiently back up what he says.

This is now the case with his order for state employees to be either vaccinated against or regularly tested for COVID-19.

Melody Gutierrez at the Los Angeles Times recently documented a number of state agencies that, three months after Newsom’s order, are failing to enforce it.

Gutierrez notes that while the Department of Motor Vehicles has 3,600 unvaccinated employees, only 411 are being tested as required. In total, just half of the 59,000 unvaccinated state employees are being tested for COVID-19.

“The entire point of Gov. Newsom being the first governor to say state employees should be vaccinated is because these employees are public interfacing and the vaccine protects them and the public they serve. Then, if the testing component isn’t being universally applied, you are defeating the point,” Monica Gandhi, professor of medicine at UC San Francisco, told the Times.

Newsom is more interested in making a bold proclamation and giving the appearance of being a national leader than he is in actually ensuring his proclamation would be implemented and enforced.

The primarily political nature of Newsom’s approach is underscored by his concurrent opposition to a request from the federal receiver overseeing the state prison system’s health services to mandate vaccination for prison guards. J. Clark Kelso, the federal court-appointed receiver overseeing the system’s health services, sought the vaccine mandate after the deaths of nearly a dozen unvaccinated correctional employees in the span of a month.

Newsom made the choice to support the California Correctional Peace Officers Association in fighting the vaccine mandate in court. Newsom’s decision to aid the CCPOA only makes sense when one remembers the CCPOA donated $1.75 million to help Newsom defeat his recall.

Newsom is showing the nation how not to lead. He announced a vaccination mandate for state employees that, three months later, is being poorly implemented, while at the same time resisting a vaccine mandate for political reasons.