Gov. Jared Polis deserves credit for issuing an executive order this week that streamlines the process for firing state employees who refuse to get vaccinated for COVID-19 if they interact with vulnerable people or those living in congregate living settings like health facilities and prisons.
This shouldn’t be difficult, but it is necessary.
In Denver, 99% of city employees who did not have a health or religious exemption have been vaccinated.
As covered by The Denver Post, Polis eliminated a state rule that required written notice seven days in advance of a “pre-disciplinary meeting” for a state employee out of compliance with vaccination requirements. As a result, the state can now go directly to the disciplinary phase, providing written notice of potential disciplinary action without having to hold a meeting first. State employees have 10 days to respond in writing to the notice and can be fired immediately if they do not respond after that timeframe.
Polis surely angered some constituencies opposed to the mandate along with the anti-vaxxer community. However, his commonsense approach is spot on. As he noted in his order, the failure to get vaccinated “threatens the State’s ability to respond to and recover from the ongoing pandemic.” It also threatens vulnerable populations. The order is rightfully targeted in a pragmatic way.
While not universally popular or an optimal way to drive public policy, vaccine mandates work. Without it, our patience only generates patients.
Last month the Centers for Disease Control released data that showed less than 0.004% of fully vaccinated people had a breakthrough case that led to their hospitalization and less than 0.001% of fully vaccinated people died from a breakthrough case.
For the past 18 months, leaders across the country have navigated the unchartered waters of COVID-19 in many different ways. During election season, which has begun, voters will certainly grade their papers in large part based upon their handling of this extraordinary crisis and decide whether they deserve another term of office.
Imagine what these leaders have dealt with since March 2020. For the last 18 months, they have made life and death decisions 24 hours a day, every day, without a break. And, if that wasn’t enough, these decisions often impacted people’s jobs and daily life. No matter what decision was made, the consequences and implications have been real and each decision was guaranteed to make someone mad.
The nation’s anger and hostility turned violent spilling onto the streets of America. Statistics released by the FBI this week show that murders in the United States jumped in 2020 by nearly 30% compared to the previous year. This is the largest increase since data began being collected in the 1960s. There can be no doubt that the pandemic played a key role in this staggering increase.
In the beginning of the pandemic, virtually every state issued stay-at-home orders and severely restricted businesses and gatherings. States monitored hospitalizations and transmission rates carefully and began to shape their orders and restrictions accordingly.
Shortly thereafter, the politics of the pandemic began to shape significant policy differences between Democratic and Republican governors and leaders across the country. Whether it was social distancing, mask-wearing policies, limiting gatherings, deciding what businesses were essential, or testing policies, politics influenced public health decisions in very different ways depending upon what state, city or county you lived in.
Today, there has been a growing divide between states that have mandated masks and vaccines and states that want to leave all pandemic-related decisions to the individual as a personal choice.
The reality is that states that have performed the best, like Colorado, divorced politics from public health decisions and used a decision matrix based upon science, data, and a heavy dose of commonsense, which isn’t so common these days.
And, Colorado’s health and economic recovery has benefitted from strong, steady leadership. Sixty-six percent of Coloradans have now received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 60% are fully vaccinated. Ninety-two percent of Coloradans 65 and up have received one dose and 84% are fully vaccinated. As a result of increased vaccinations, the fourth wave appears to have leveled off and hospitalizations are declining.
It’s difficult to quantify just how many lives were saved by vaccinations and policies in Colorado, but the Kaiser Family Foundation between how many people over the age of 65 were dying in a given state from COVID-19 and the percent of that population that had been vaccinated. On one extreme is Arkansas, where about 73% of those 65 and older had been vaccinated and the death rate among that population — since July 1, 2021 — has been 198 per 100,000 residents. On the other end of the spectrum is Massachusetts where almost 89% of older residents are vaccinated and the death rate since July has been 28 per 100,000. Colorado has 83% of older residents vaccinated and the death rate has been 59 per 100,000, similar to the national average.
Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis has jettisoned sound public policy, is an extreme outlier where 84% of older residents are vaccinated and the death rate has been the highest in the nation 230 per 100,000.
When itap time to grade Colorado’s paper, politicians like Polis who make thoughtful, life-saving decisions should be applauded and welcomed back to office.
Doug Friednash is a Denver native, a partner with the law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber and Schreck and the former chief of staff for Gov. John Hickenlooper.
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