AllStances™: COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates

Should the United States federally enforce a COVID-19 vaccine mandate? Should employees have a choice between vaccination and regular testing? Is a vaccine mandate constitutional or moral?

Explore all perspectives, stances, and arguments for and against COVID-19 vaccine mandates with AllStances™ by AllSides.

Americans have been divided over the notion of requiring vaccination to enter public institutions or private venues and workplaces. Some believe it’s the key to putting the COVID-19 pandemic behind us. Others think it’s an unnecessary overreach.

The Biden administration has been pushing to enforce vaccine mandates for businesses with 100 or more employees, certain health care workers and federal contractors. However, the mandate has been delayed by a series of legal challenges and polarized reactions. As of December 7, 59.6% of Americans were fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

Explore all the arguments, stances and perspectives around COVID-19 vaccine mandates. (Keep in mind that stances aren't mutually exclusive — some viewpoints might align with multiple stances.)

Are we missing a stance or perspective? Email us!

Stance 1: Vaccine Mandates Should Be Enforced by the State in All Public Indoor Spaces and Upon Private Businesses

CORE ARGUMENT: Enforcing vaccine mandates on a federal and/or state level is the most efficient way to put the COVID-19 pandemic behind us.

More arguments for this stance:

• Personal choice is only acceptable as long as your personal choices don’t hurt other people — and going unvaccinated during a pandemic does hurt other people.
• There is considerable scientific data that proves vaccine mandates are safe and effective.
• Employers should make their employees get vaccinated for the health of their business.
• Getting vaccinated protects others. Getting vaccinated means you are less likely to get COVID. If you don't get COVID, you can't spread COVID to someone else. 
• Not getting vaccinated negatively affects other people. Vaccines are not 100% effective, so there is a chance that an unvaccinated person could infect a vaccinated person — particularly the vulnerable, such as elderly and immunocompromised individuals.
• Vaccine mandates are helping us to close the door on the COVID-19 pandemic, thus restoring public confidence and lifting the economy back onto a higher growth path.
• The choice of too many individuals to go unvaccinated has already resulted in the worsening of the pandemic and the COVID-19 virus itself.
• The COVID-19 vaccines underwent the same clinical trials as other vaccines, but in an accelerated format due to increased funding and quicker monitoring of efficacy.
• All employers should eliminate any religious exemptions for COVID-19 vaccines as vaccine hesitancy has never been a core belief for most religions.
• Vaccination should be a civic duty enforced by the State, not a personal choice.
• The US should follow Europe and require patrons to show proof of vaccination to enter local workplaces, restaurants, cinemas, sports venues, gyms and other public areas. 
• The Supreme Court has twice upheld vaccine mandates, making Biden’s federal vaccine requirement constitutional.
• The government should focus its energy primarily on promoting vaccine mandates and stop worrying about masks.

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Stance 2: Vaccines Should Only Be Mandated in High-Risk Places

CORE ARGUMENT: Vaccine mandates should be instituted in specific high-risk places and situations, such as hospitals, schools and state buildings.

More arguments for this stance:

• Hospitals that mandate vaccination for their health care workers take this action to better protect patients and the communities they serve.
• Most healthcare workers are paid by federally administered programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, which are legally allowed to govern the terms of participation for facilities they fund.
• Healthcare workers took an oath to protect their patients and should be acutely aware of the damage that COVID-19 can do to hospital capacity.
• Those who work in public health should lead by example by promoting vaccines, instead of anti-vaccine rhetoric that dismisses science.
• Children who contract the virus can spread it to those most vulnerable including parents, grandparents, teachers and other school staff.
• If COVID-19 vaccines are required to attend public schools, community transmission will lessen and vaccine-hesitant people will eventually see the value in vaccines.
• Since there are already longstanding school vaccine mandates for many illnesses such as measles and chickenpox, the same logic should apply for COVID-19.
• The pandemic has already significantly disrupted children’s education, and vaccine mandates offer the best path to a post-pandemic world.

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Stance 3: People Should Have A Choice Between Vaccines Or Regular Testing

CORE ARGUMENT: People should have the right to choose between getting the vaccine or adhering to regular testing and having to wear a mask.

More arguments for this stance:

• We shouldn’t connect legally necessary “safety” to depriving people of their livelihoods.
• While parents may choose to vaccinate their own children, forcing them to get vaccinated in order to attend school is unethical and unlawful.
• OSHA’s proposed federal vaccine mandate is unnecessary and divisive. 
• A vaccine mandate could undermine public confidence in the vaccine, resulting in fewer people being vaccinated.
• Polarizing vaccine requirements have pinned fellow Americans against each other.
• Rather than engaging in a feel-good campaign to urge vaccinations as a civic duty, the country has been bogged down in legal battles and partisan debates while the virus continues to rage. 
• Arguing that an employer’s vaccine mandate violates an employee’s free speech rights is a legal theory that’s still being debated. 
• While vaccine requirements could help reduce the spread of COVID-19, the political polarization associated with them is a major concern.
• Policies that require unvaccinated people to get tested and wear masks are “vaccine choices,” not “vaccine mandates.”
• Control over one’s own body is the basis of all freedom. 
• Americans have a right to bodily autonomy and should be free to make their own decisions.
• It's unjust coercion to force people to undergo a medical procedure they may not want.

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Stance 4: Vaccine Mandates Should Be Left Up to Private Entities to Implement and Enforce

CORE ARGUMENT: Businesses should have the freedom to impose or not impose a vaccine mandate on their workers and patrons.

More arguments for this stance:

• Governments generally make “one-size fits all” decisions, but private people and institutions can make better decisions for their specific scenarios. While mistakes by the government impact everyone, mistakes by smaller entities will have a more limited impact.
• People who do not want to work under a vaccine mandate can choose to work at a business that does not require it; likewise, people who do not want to be required to show their vaccination status to enter bars, restaurants, and other venues can take their business elsewhere. This preserves the liberty of all.
• American companies have lost and could continue to lose significant portions of their workforces due to state-enforced vaccine mandates. One-size-fits-all mandates have caused, and will continue to cause, an unmanageable burden for countless employees and businesses.
• Forcing the vaccine mandate on healthcare workers has resulted in devastating labor shortages, especially in rural America where resistance to the vaccine remains strongest. 
• Vaccine mandates are creating unnecessary conflicts between employers and defiant workers.
• Illegal immigrants or those who are living on government assistance aren’t being forced to take the vaccine.
• State mandates reward businesses that illegally do not comply, while law-abiding businesses suffer more.

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Stance 5: People Should be Free from All Vaccine and Testing Mandates

CORE ARGUMENT: Vaccine mandates infringe upon bodily freedom and constitute government overreach.

More arguments for this stance:

• Federal or corporate vaccine mandates set a dangerous precedent for future restrictions on individual freedom.
• The Biden administration’s proposed vaccine mandate is driven more by political motives than science. Mandates are a way to politically purge dissidents and target those who love freedom and/or doubt the trustworthiness of large pharmaceutical companies, the government or public health professionals.
• Vaccine mandates won’t completely end the spread of the virus as vaccine effectiveness declines and new variants emerge. Fully vaccinated people can still get a COVID-19 "breakthrough" infection and can spread the virus to others. 
• Since other vaccines were tested for years and sometimes decades before being mandated, the COVID-19 vaccine should not be treated any differently.
• Vaccine mandates are unconstitutional because the federal government does not have the authority to require American adults to put things in their bodies. 
• Vaccine mandates for U.S. intelligence agencies threaten our national security by potentially purging valuable employees and contractors.
• COVID-19 is not a serious enough disease to warrant such sweeping measures, and the risk factor of the virus is low for many groups, particularly the young and healthy. If the government really cared about health, it would actively promote regular exercise, getting sunshine and Vitamin D, and eating healthy foods instead of heavily processed ones.
• Lawmakers should think in terms of immunity instead of vaccination status.
• The risk of serious illness or death from COVID-19 is small, so it makes no sense to force most people to bear the brunt of the mandate.
• The vaccine mandate doesn’t consider the thousands of breakthrough cases where Americans have died after taking the COVID-19 vaccine. 
• Black Americans and other minority communities are understandably less willing to conform to a vaccine mandate due to their experiences of discrimination in healthcare.
• There are a number of credible scientists pushing back against vaccine mandates.

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The Author:

Antonio Ferme, AllSides Weekend Editor, Center bias

Reviewers and Contributors:

Henry Brechter, AllSides Managing Editor, Center bias

John Gable, AllSides CEO and Co-Founder, Lean Right bias

Julie Mastrine, AllSides Director of Marketing, Lean Right bias

Joseph Ratliff, AllSides Daily News Editor, Lean Left bias

Andrew Weinzierl, AllSides Research Assistant, Lean Left bias