Turns Out Most Americans Will Get the COVID-19 Vaccine to Keep Their Job

Sometimes, the simplest solution is the most effective. After months of advertising campaigns, lottery entries, gimmicky incentives, and outright pleas for Americans to get their COVID-19 shots, the White House, local governments, and businesses finally started getting tough, with vaccine mandates from Joe Biden, local leaders, and corporations taking effect across the country. And wouldn’t you know it, requiring people to get vaxxed to work, attend school, and participate in other hallmarks of pre-pandemic life might be working better than promising them a free beer.

Despite a spate of recent headlines about workers walking off the job or getting fired for refusing mandatory vaccinations, a vast majority of employees seem to be complying with the new requirements. United Airlines, one of the first major corporations to make employment contingent on inoculation, announced Monday—the day of its compliance deadline—that 98.5% of its United States-based workforce had received at least one shot, with CEO Scott Kirby noting that number isn’t even the final tally. That, Kirby said, will likely put the company’s vaccination rate at more than 99%—and the number of employees terminated under the mandate at fewer than 600. “Everyone is safer when everyone is vaccinated,” Kirby said, “and vaccine requirements work.”

Evidence of the effectiveness of mandates also came from Tyson Foods, which imposed a vaccine requirement for all employees at the beginning of August. At the time, not even half of its workers were vaccinated. On Thursday, the company’s chief medical officer, Claudia Coplein, told the New York Times that its vaccination rate was now 91%—a huge swing over the course of the last two months. The apparent success could be a model for other companies and governments, which have reached out to Tyson, per the Times’ DealBook newsletter.

There have been and will be some refusals that result in job losses, of course. There will continue to be high-profile vaccine truthers, such as NBA star Kyrie Irving, who has asked for “privacy” about his vaccination status. (Irving, Andrew Wiggins, and other NBA anti-vaxxers got a shout-out from Ted Cruz over their stand. NBA legend and activist Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was less impressed: “The NBA should insist that all players and staff are vaccinated or remove them from the team,” he told Rolling Stone. “There is no room for players who are willing to risk the health and lives of their teammates, the staff and the fans simply because they are unable to grasp the seriousness of the situation or do the necessary research.”) But despite political divides over mandates, a growing body of evidence suggests that compliance with the requirements has been strong.

The mandates appear to be particularly effective in healthcare systems, including in New York, where 92% of workers statewide have now received shots. “Holding firm on the vaccine mandate for health care workers is simply the right thing to do to protect our vulnerable family members and loved ones from COVID-19,” said New York Governor Kathy Hochul, noting that those numbers have spiked in the past month. If mandates are similarly effective at other large businesses, which will have vaccine mandates or stringent testing requirements under the plan Biden announced earlier this month, it could have a profound impact on the battle against the pandemic. Right-wingers like Cruz and Tucker Carlson, whose Fox News program has been a geyser of anti-vaccine fearmongering and wild conjecture about the state of Nicki Minaj’s cousin’s friend’s testicles, are going to keep sowing doubt. But at the end of the day, they represent a smaller number than those who support the mandates—and they aren’t the ones signing Americans’ paychecks.