New law ends COVID-19 vaccine mandate for US troops | AP News

This law is not in the best interests of US military personnel or anyone who comes into contact with them here or abroad. As a veteran who served in the US Army many years ago, I was required to be vaccinated against a number of different diseases as a condition of my employment. Singling out COVID-19 as an exception while it is still a major threat to the health and welfare of military personnel and all those they come in contact with unnecessarily endangers both their cohorts and innocent people abroad who have not had access to this preventative measure.

School children and employees for many institutions and corporations also have been mandated to be vaccinated for such diseases as smallpox ( I seem to recall this was required of all troops serving under George Washington) , polio, typhoid, measles and various other serious illnesses for many decades. Turning COVID-19 into a political issue to soothe the inanity of so-called “freedom-loving” anti-vax advocates and followers of anti-intellectual rabble-rousing politicians like Ron DeSantis and the Make America Great Again crowd instead of the serious health issue that it actually is means more people will die needlessly.

Donald Trump’s abysmal reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in millions of infections and more than a million deaths in this country alone. It nearly cost Trump his own life as well. Encouraging people to not receive preventative treatment during an ongoing crisis is neither prudent nor in the best interests of anyone. People throughout this country have been fired for refusing such treatment, and rightfully so, in my opinion.

Hospital workers, other health care workers, professional athletes, school personnel and people in many other lines of work have had to deal with a choice of between continuing their employment or refusing to receive the vaccine. Others should not be forced to endure their refusal to do so in the face of evidence that the vaccine is effective in reducing hospitalization or deaths.

People during the early days of the pandemic may or may not have been harmed by listening to suggestions of the world’s most knowledgeable expert on COVID-19 by seeking to use of Clorox or Lysol or some other disinfectant that does more damage to the human body than the virus itself. I’d prefer to get my medical advice from Dr. Fauci or Dr. Kildare or Dr. Seuss than Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis or some other self-serving politician who is more interested in scoring political points by ridiculing people interested in helping the rest of us.

Donald Trump’s utterly inadequate response to the CODID-19 pandemic may not have cost him the 2020 election by itself, but it certainly didn’t help. Those responsible for removing the mandate for military personnel are doing those people any favors. Making the inclusion of this provision a condition to the funding of other aspects of military spending is short-sighted and misinformed. – rjc

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. military forces around the world will no longer be required to get the COVID-19 vaccine, after the mandate was lifted under an $858 billion defense spending bill passed by Congress and signed into law Friday by President Joe Biden.

Source: New law ends COVID-19 vaccine mandate for US troops | AP News