Indiana is urging Hoosiers to get the COVID-19 vaccination, but won’t be making it a requirement.
Coronavirus spread in Indiana is at its highest level since February, but just over half of eligible Hoosiers have gotten the vaccine. Holcomb says he’ll “shout from the rooftops” the importance of getting the shot. He notes the vaccine has prevented serious illness in all but a handful of cases, while there are all too many cases of people who’ve died or been gravely ill after refusing or mocking the vaccine.
But while Indiana requires vaccinations against diseases from measles to meningitis, a law passed in April bans the state from requiring the COVID shot. Holcomb says it should be an individual decision. and says the state should “encourage and persuade” people to get the vaccine, not require it.
Holcomb says numerous health experts have said the most effective messengers for the importance of the vaccine are at the local level: friends, family doctors, and employers. He says he’s been “heartened” at the number of businesses who have taken the initiative in educating their workers about the vaccine.
Holcomb says he won’t be reimposing the mask mandate which expired in April either. He says a mask is a good extra layer of protection, but says unlike last summer when he issued the mask order, the state now has other safety precautions available, the universal availability of the vaccine chief among them.
The Centers for Disease Control now recommend masks even for vaccinated people when they’re indoors, after research on the highly infectious Delta variant indicated its viral load is high enough that even vaccinated people can spread it to the unvaccinated. Monroe County this week became the first in Indiana to impose a mask order since Indianapolis ended its mask mandate July 1.
3 comments
Employers should be banned from requiring it, as should private businesses.
NOBODY should know the medical status of any Hoosier except on a voluntary basis. Period.
Where is the “science.” Where are the studies that show masks do anything against a virus. The masks are only used to shame those not wearing them. it is purely a political stunt. Don;t believe me?? Explain how Obervaxenführer Darth Fauci can complain about the motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota that is mostly held out doors then ignore those super spreaders at Barry O’s birthday bash????? No spreading event happened last year when there was no vaccine. what we rubes don’t understand is that the virus can distinguish between the sophisticates in Massachusetts and the deplorables out in South Dakota. The truth is at this point, after 12+ months of being hectored by every politician and health Nazi all Americans understand the risks and benefits of the vaccine. Do we not have the liberty to chose for ourselves??? Get the vax if you want it. Wear 6-layers of mask if you want to. But leave the rest of us alone to decide for ourselves. that is our inalienable right! If you are scared out of your shorts by the schizophrenic Darth Fauci then stay home. That is your right too.
The problem is your decision to not get the vaccine DOES affect me and others around you. You are causing this virus to mutate again. Maybe the next mutation won’t be stopped by the vaccine. So everyone has to get booster shots, except the ones who don’t get the vaccine. And…it mutates again…more boosters. Do you see how making this goes on forever??
Also, do you know anyone now who has polio? No? I didn’t think so.
Just get the damn vaccine.