{"id":41088,"date":"2021-10-12T13:19:48","date_gmt":"2021-10-12T20:19:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=41088"},"modified":"2021-10-12T16:20:31","modified_gmt":"2021-10-12T23:20:31","slug":"texas-governor-opens-new-front-on-vaccine-mandates-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=41088","title":{"rendered":"Texas governor opens new front on vaccine mandates"},"content":{"rendered":"

Texas Gov.\u00a0Greg Abbott<\/a>\u00a0(R) is opening a new front in the war over vaccine mandates, setting up a showdown with the Biden administration.<\/p>\n

Abbott on Monday issued an executive order banning COVID-19 vaccine mandates by any \u201centity in Texas,\u201d including private businesses. That order conflicts with a forthcoming federal regulation announced by\u00a0President Biden<\/a>\u00a0to require that businesses with 100 or more employees ensure their workers are vaccinated or get tested weekly.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn yet another instance of federal overreach, the Biden Administration is now bullying many private entities into imposing COVID-19 vaccine mandates,\u201d Abbott wrote in the order.<\/p>\n

GOP rebellion:<\/strong>\u00a0Abbott\u2019s move is an escalation in the Republican battle against vaccine mandates, something that many public health experts view as a key tool in the fight against the pandemic, given that voluntary efforts like incentives have hit their limits.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Florida Gov.\u00a0Ron DeSantis<\/a>\u00a0(R), who like Abbott has also pushed back on local mask mandates and vaccine passports, floated the idea of a similar move against vaccine mandates in his state, though he said it would likely require the state legislature to act.<\/p>\n

Public health perspective:\u00a0<\/strong>Public health experts have largely praised the role of vaccine mandates as the virus continues to kill almost 2,000 Americans, mostly unvaccinated people, every day.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re still at a high level of transmission in the nation and in Texas only one half of the population is vaccinated,\u201d tweeted Peter Hotez, a professor at the Baylor College of Medicine in Texas. \u201cWe need all tools possible, including vaccine mandates, to close the gap and halt COVID-19 transmission here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Texas Gov.\u00a0Greg Abbott\u00a0(R) is opening a...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","category-u-s-a"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41088"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41089,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41088\/revisions\/41089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}