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The Daily

The Vaccine Mandate Conundrum

The Daily

The New York Times

Daily News, News

4.4102.8K Ratings

🗓️ 27 July 2021

⏱️ 22 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In the effort to raise America’s vaccination rate, some agencies and private organizations have turned to the last, and most controversial, weapon in the public health arsenal: vaccine mandates. How have the federal government and the White House approached the issue? Guest: Jennifer Steinhauer, a Washington reporter for The New York Times.

Transcript

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0:00.0

From New York Times, I'm Michael Borrow. This is a Daily.

0:10.0

Today.

0:12.0

For the first time, a federal agency is requiring that its workers receive a vaccine against COVID-19.

0:20.0

I spoke with my colleague, Jennifer Steinauer, about whether it's a sign of things to come.

0:32.0

It's Tuesday, July 27th.

0:38.0

Jennifer, why is it that we are now suddenly talking about vaccine mandates?

0:43.0

Michael, I think you have to look at the vaccine as sort of three phases.

0:49.0

First, there was the phase of, okay, we have a vaccine, but nobody can get it.

0:55.0

Lines, people waiting all night to get a vaccine.

0:57.0

Then we moved pretty quickly into the phase of, we have a lot of vaccine,

1:03.0

and we're having slow uptake among certain people to take the vaccine.

1:07.0

Right? And now we're in the next phase of it, which is, you have this delta variant of the coronavirus,

1:13.0

raging through the world, including the United States.

1:16.0

And it's no longer seen so much of a choice of who wants a vaccine, and who doesn't want the vaccine,

1:22.0

as it is a border on a public health crisis again.

1:25.0

So, at this point, government, the private sector, the White House, have done kind of what they can do to move the needle.

1:35.0

They've begged, they've cajoled, and pretty much it seems that we've hit a ceiling.

1:41.0

And so, you're starting to hear increasing calls from experts on this illness

1:46.0

that in order to get this in check and not have another giant wave in this country,

1:50.0

possibly the best way to do that would be mandates.

1:53.0

Right. The thinking being, after all these efforts and experiments that haven't quite done the job,

2:01.0

that a mandate is kind of our last weapon in the public health arsenal to get people to get the shot.

...

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