Biden makes a new push for vaccinations
President proposes house visits, clinics in workplaces
Faced with a steep decline in vaccination rates, President Joe Biden said on Tuesday that his administration would send people door to door, set up clinics at workplaces and urge employers to offer paid time off as part of a renewed push to reach tens of millions of unvaccinated Americans.
But top health experts say that it is simply not enough, and that the president needs to take the potentially unpopular step of encouraging states, employers and colleges and universities to require vaccinations in order to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
Instead, in a speech on Tuesday, Biden doubled down on the idea of coaxing people to get vaccinated a voluntary approach that appears to have hit its limit for a large number of Americans who say they have no intention of taking the shot.
“Please get vaccinated now. It works. It’s free,” Biden said in brief remarks at the White House. “It’s never been easier, and it’s never been more important. Do it now for yourself and the people you care about, for your neighborhood, for your country. It sounds corny, but it’s a patriotic thing to do.”
Case numbers have gone up in parts of the country where vaccination rates remain low, fueled by the highly contagious delta variant. That has some public health officials worried that the administration is not being aggressive enough in waging what the president calls a “wartime effort” to ensure that the population of the United States is protected.
“I’m trying to restrain myself, but I’ve kind of had it,” said Kathleen Sebelius, who was the health secretary for five years under President Barack Obama. Schools and businesses should be encouraged to require the vaccine, she said. “You know, we’re going to tiptoe around mandates,” she said. “It’s like, come on. I’m kind of over that. I want to make sure that people I deal with don’t have it so I don’t transmit it to my granddaughter.”
But Biden’s options to be more aggressive are limited.
As president, he can mandate that members of the military get the vaccine a step that his administration has declined to take, in part because the drugs are still considered experimental under the emergency authorizations that the Food and Drug Administration granted last year.
The Biden administration considered and rejected calls to require a federal vaccine passport, a move that some experts said would help contain the spread of the virus by allowing people to prove that they have been inoculated. And last month, the administration issued guidance to federal agencies saying they should not require employees to be vaccinated.
For the most part, the power lies in the hands of states, employers or private institutions.
Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, a professor of bioethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania, said it was unlikely that the United States could make significant strides in its vaccination campaign without mandates.
“I like to say a mandate is legal, ethical and efficacious,” he said. “Ultimately, workplaces are probably going to have to.”
In his speech, Biden said his administration was not giving up on persuading people that vaccination was in their best interests, and in the interest of the country.
But he made no mention of the need for states, private companies, schools and other institutions to begin requiring people who were reluctant to get vaccinated.
Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, acknowledged in comments to reporters on Tuesday that some companies, schools and other institutions were beginning to require vaccines. But she said the administration had no intention of encouraging them to do so.