August 8, 2021

Top US Health Official: It’s Time for Vaccine Mandates

A woman receives a COVID-19 vaccine from a nurse at ''Labor of Love,'' a COVID-19 vaccination event set up in the parking lot of the Los Angeles Federation of Labor office in Los Angeles. Ringo Chiu/AP

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As the nation enters a brutal fourth wave of COVID cases and deaths, with infection levels unseen since last winter, National Institute of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins said on ABC’s This Week on Sunday that it may be time for mandatory vaccinations—a remark that will likely inspire backlash from Republicans who have viewed mandates as an infringement on personal rights.

“For me, as a non-political person, as a physician, as a scientist, the compelling case for vaccines for everybody is right there in front of you. Just look at the data,” Collins told host George Stephanopoulos. “And certainly, I celebrate when I see businesses deciding that they’re going to mandate that for their employees…I think we ought to use every public health tool that we can when people are dying.”

As my colleague Nathalie Baptiste recently noted, the United States currently faces a dilemma in which vaccine uptake, especially in Southern states, has slowed—while hospitalizations, particularly among unvaccinated people, have spiked. Just 50 percent of Americans have been fully vaccinated so far. But many Republican leaders have been wary of forcing their constituents to get the shot. The Huffington Post reported that at least 16 states have barred vaccine mandates to some extent. On NBC’s Meet the Press, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, called for vaccine mandates on Sunday, even as other unions have resisted such mandates.

When asked during the ABC interview whether vaccine mandates can make a difference, Collins let out a sigh and laughed. “I understand how that can sometimes set off all kinds of resistance,” Collins said. “Why is it that a mandate about vaccine or wearing a mask suddenly becomes a statement about your political party? We never should have let that happen.”

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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