New York Governor Kathy Hochul Will Fire Unvaccinated Healthcare Workers And Bring In The National Guard

This is anti-worker, anti-freedom and wrong even if healthcare workers obviously should get vaccinated.

Kathy Hochul, governor of New York, has issued a mandate that all healthcare workers in the state must be vaccinated or lose their jobs by tonight at midnight.

She says she will bring in medically trained National Guard troops to fill in vacancies left by fired healthcare workers.

While I believe healthcare workers obviously should get vaccinated—and it boggles my mind that some still won’t—this is not only government overreach, it’s anti-worker and should be opposed by anyone who believes that working people deserve a fair shake in this country. It’s anti-freedom, and flies in the face of bodily autonomy and fairness.

Some of these healthcare workers have natural immunity from the disease itself. Many came down with COVID-19 while risking their lives and health to help sick people during the pandemic. As I noted on Twitter:

Erik Kain @erikkain

So imagine being a healthcare worker in NY who spent 2020/2021 risking your life and busting your ass to take care of COVID patients and now you're getting fired by the governor because you don't want to get vaccinated. That is pretty damn messed up. (I am pro-vaccine).

I’m all for individual hospitals, doctor’s offices and other places of employment to set their own rules. If you run a hospital and decide that in order to work their your employees must be vaccinated, that’s your right. But this should not be an edict from on-high.

Part of this is purely logistical. Staffing healthcare systems is no simple task and I suspect that Hochul will find it much more difficult than she believes to do so in a way that satisfies healthcare provider needs. Those urging for other states to do the same should probably think twice before welcoming the National Guard into our hospitals.

Firing people who have served their fellow citizens on the front-lines—and then leaving them out in the cold with no unemployment benefits and no livelihood in their own state—is morally reprehensible. You can still spread COVID-19 if you’re vaccinated. The only people vaccines truly protect are those who are vaccinated, which is why nurses and techs and doctors in hospitals still must wear surgical masks (or even more protection) even when they’re vaccinated.

This feels like politics as usual, showy and obscene, and the many lives it ruins be damned. They’re only workers, after all. No need to concern ourselves with them.