Dan Haar: CEOs weigh in on vaccine mandates and Trump.
The deeper question isn’t what the law says or whether the vaccines are safe and effective, and it isn’t about personal freedom vs. community values. It’s whether vaccine mandates will be needed, and whether we’re placing too much stock in these drugs to save public health for a population that does a lousy job of taking care of itself.
Clouds from the dry ice used in shipping Pfizer’s first COVID vaccines have barely cleared and already we’re hearing the hew and cry for making the inoculations mandatory at companies, schools and public facilities.
Qantas, the Australian airline, will require passengers to be vaccinated to board their jets, CEO Alan Joyce told the BBC even before vaccinations had begun. And he said after talking with other airline bosses, “I think it’s going to be a common thing.”
At the Yale CEO Summit last week, held online with 150 heads and former heads of global corporations and agencies, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, the Yale School of Management leadership guru, posed the question in an instant survey: “Should vaccines be required at work by companies?”
A surprising 71 percent of the business chiefs at the summit, and even more from government and academia, said yes, Sonnenfeld announced to participants seconds after the question at the online event, his 104th CEO summit since 1989.
The vaccinations also tied into another set of responses by the CEOs, on President Donald Trump undermining the U. S. image in the world and confidence in U. S. democracy. For example, 88 percent of the business CEOs said President-Elect Joe Biden will improve U. S. standing among other nations, and 72 percent said Trump’s behavior since he lost the election has hurt this nation’s democracy.
Back to that connection in a minute. First, the question of companies requiring the vaccines for their employees.
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla was among those in attendance, and we can guess he voted aye in the anonymous poll. But CEOs as a bunch tend to favor flexibility over mandates, so nearly threequarters in agreement for enforced vaccines should raise some eyebrows.
That’s especially true since we don’t know key facts about this vaccine that we’re hailing as savior of the world. Yes, it looks to be safe based on about 40,000 people who were closely monitored after taking the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines — both of which now have emergency authorization from U. S. regulators.
And yes, the results of trials that would be considered preliminary for a normal drug in normal times show these shots — using a new method for vaccines — are more than 90 percent effective. “Definitely I was thinking that we would not be able to make it that effective,” Bourla said at the summit.
Effective for how long? For how much exposure to the novel coronaviris that was discovered 12 months ago? And can a person carry and transmit COVID- 19 after receiving the two- part vaccination?
“We don’t know exactly yet,” Bourla said when Sonnenfeld put that last question to him, “but we will know in a few months or we will have a very good indication.”
Sonnenfeld, calling on CEOs in the wide- ranging discussion, was unable to find any who said, sure, I’m prepared to make the COVID vaccine mandatory at my company right away. “It’s too early to say,” said Doug Parker, CEO of American Airlines. “What we ought to do is let the vaccine be distributed and see what the acceptance rates are.”
“We’ll look closely at it, but it’s too soon for a decision,” said Lynn Good, CEO of Duke Energy.
And so it went from the heads of Yum! Brands, MetLife and others. And yet, driven in part by pressure from a prominent journalist — Andrew Ross Sorkin of The New York Times and CNBC — corporate leaders seem headed toward requiring one of these vaccines at their workplaces.
Sorkin, a participant in the Yale summit (along with journalist and author Bob Woodward, though neither runs an organization) also said now would be the wrong time for corporate employee mandates. But considering 40 percent or more of Americans say they won’t take the vaccine, he said companies would have a “social responsibility” to do so if it would speed the recovery from the crisis.
State and federal laws aren’t clear on corporate mandates. Sorkin said his reporting shows companies could do it. Certainly many hospitals already require employees to get seasonal flu vaccines, for example, and of course, schools require a series of vaccines.
Sonnenfeld, senior associate dean at the school of management, suggested in a follow-up email to me that global commerce will spread the mandates. “Just as masks, COVID testing, and drug abuse testing are required by many employers, so can and perhaps should employers require vaccines just the way schools require them,” he said. “Other countries are likely to have these requirements.... When a global firm is required to have such practices in one nation, it will be carried over to all.”
The deeper question isn’t what the law says or whether the vaccines are safe and effective, and it isn’t about personal freedom vs. community values. It’s whether vaccine mandates will be needed, and whether we’re placing too much stock in these drugs to save public health for a population that does a lousy job of taking care of itself.
With the help of these vaccines among other measures, with permanent lifestyle changes but well short of government and corporate mandates, COVID-19 might well disappear as a widespread threat.
Notably, these same 150 corporate and government leaders hold a strong sense of shared values, as their answers about U. S. standing under Trump showed. That’s true even though many of them and their companies have done fabulously well under this president.
The only debate was whether U. S. standing can recover quickly, not whether Trump has botched it — although Lloyd Blankfein, of Goldman Sachs, said Trump’s toughness, especially with NATO on defense in Europe, naturally led to a backlash.
“These CEOs have consistently reported that they were embarrassed by the U. S. image abroad since he took office,” Sonnenfeld said in the email to me, citing “great enthusiasm shown for Bidenled resurgence in multilateral trade, diplomatic, and security fronts as America First became a losing hand of America Alone.”
One optimistic CEO, Joe Ucuzoglu of Deloitte U. S., the consultancy, tied it together. The COVID vaccine is a perfect example of the sort of explosive technology advance that will lead the United States back to strong standing in the world.
“You still have a deep and longstanding affection in many geographies around the world for the role of the United States, the innovation that we drive,” Ucuzoglu said.
“I’m actually still pretty bullish that the overriding optimism and ingenuity that the U. S. stands for is the underpinning of our brand, and it will return.”
Progress on both fronts, COVID and U. S. standing, will take time and fundamental changes. Americans tend to look for easy, flashy fixes, which is why we’re so drug- dependent rather than focusing on holistic health, why diet scams do so well, why we have no patience for soccer games or climate change.
The vaccines are part of the answer, just like firing Trump is part of the answer. And it’s more effective coming from the voluntary vote of the people, not from mandates that could backfire as we saw with the Trump impeachment.