American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten backed COVID-19 vaccine mandates for educators on Sunday.
After pushing for voluntary shots earlier in the week, Weingarten said her union, which is one of the largest in the country, would look into shot requirements after talking with leadership because the delta variant has contributed to a large rise in cases of the coronavirus.
“I’ve been around the country this week,” Weingarten said on a segment of NBC’s Meet the Press. “I was in Florida and Missouri as we’re pushing a full-court press for back to school, and the delta variants are alarming, and the spread is alarming, and you’ve already said it’s a pandemic of the unvaccinated.”
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“Let me just be personal for a moment, which is that vaccines are the single most important way of dealing with COVID … I think that we need to be working with our employers, not opposing them, on vaccine mandates,” she added.
The union boss said her cohort will “revisit and reconsider” its previous voluntary vaccination stance and said approximately 90% of her members are fully inoculated. Weingarten cited unvaccinated children as a reason for her decision.
“I do think that the circumstances have changed and that vaccination is a community responsibility and weighs really heavily on me that kids under 12 can’t get vaccinated,” she said.
Days prior to her comments, Weingarten’s union maintained the view that the shots should be voluntary and that teachers should not be “coerced” into vaccine compliance.
Her remarks came moments after National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins urged more vaccine mandates across the United States in response to the highly contagious delta variant.
“Yeah, I think we ought to use every public health tool we can when people are dying,” he said when asked if it’s time for more requirements on a segment of ABC News’s This Week. “Death rates are starting up again.”
“Well, that’s [an] obviously hot topic for me as a nonpolitical person, as a physician, as a scientist,” Collins added. “The compelling case for vaccines for everybody is right there in front of you. Just look at the data. Certainly, I celebrate when I see businesses decide that they’re going to mandate that for their employees.”
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Numerous businesses, local governments, and other entities have reimposed face-covering requirements and have begun to require vaccinations after a rise in virus cases. In one of the most drastic policy shifts, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Tuesday that restaurants and gyms will require inoculation documentation in the boroughs as part of the “Key to NYC Pass,” which will launch on Aug. 16.
Over the last two weeks, the U.S. has seen a 111% rise in cases, an 84% jump in hospitalizations, and an 89% increase in virus-related deaths. About 60% of the country’s population is fully vaccinated, while slightly more than 70% of U.S. adults have received at least one dose.
