![]() Gavin Newsom’s July 26 order for state employees and healthcare workers to be fully vaccinated or submit to weekly testing was the first of its kind, as was a similar declaration Aug. Many government agencies, healthcare providers, colleges and the military had been awaiting the move before enforcing mandates.Ĭalifornia, which abolished nonmedical exemptions for childhood vaccination in 2015, has led the way on COVID vaccine mandates.ĭemocratic Gov. The Food and Drug Administration’s full approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on Aug. John Swartzberg, an expert on infectious diseases and professor at UC Berkeley. “I have a feeling that not a lot of people are going to want to fight on this topic,” said Dr. As a result, some experts predict most employers and administrators won’t want to challenge such objections from their employees. Still, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission grants broad leeway to what constitutes a sincerely held religious belief. Many seem willing to cater to people who reject vaccination for another reason. Although individual clergy members have mounted the anti-vaccine bandwagon, they have no obvious justification in religious texts for their positions. It counsels “respect for public health authorities and conscientious obedience to the laws of the land, including those requiring vaccination.”Īnd if a person claims their privately held religious beliefs forbid vaccination, that defense is unlikely to hold up in court if challenged, legal experts say. Even the Christian Science Church, whose adherents rely largely on prayer rather than medicine, does not impose an official policy. No major denomination opposes vaccination. With workplace vaccination mandates in the offing, opponents are turning to a tried-and-true recourse for avoiding a COVID-19 shot: the claim that vaccination interferes with religious beliefs. And a Texas-based evangelist offers exemption letters to anyone - for a suggested “donation” starting at $25. A New Mexico state senator will “help you articulate a religious exemption” by pointing to the decades-old use of aborted fetal cells in the development of some vaccines. ![]() In Northern California, the pastor of a megachurch hands out religious exemption forms to the faithful.
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