Coronavirus vaccine mandates banned in Mississippi

by

kobee vance

• Published on April 25, 2022 • Comments

In this Sept. 21, 2021, file photo, Jackson-Hinds Comprehensive Health Center nurse Maggie Bass, right, injects a COVID-19 vaccine into an arm in Jackson, Miss. A survey of Americans on President Joe Biden’s plan to require most workers to get either vaccinated or regularly tested for COVID-19 finds a deep and familiar divide: Democrats are overwhelmingly for it, while most Republicans are against it according to a poll released Thursday, Sept. 30, by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis

A new law in Mississippi bans mandates for coronavirus vaccinations and vaccine passports. But health officials say the law wasn’t necessary.

LISTEN HERE

Governor Tate Reeves has signed House Bill 1509, which bans discrimination based on vaccination status, prevents schools from mandating COVID vaccines for children, and requires employers to honor religious objections. Mississippi has historically ranked number one in the nation for kindergarten vaccination rates due to state laws requiring immunizations. State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs says he is hopeful that this law does not undermine that success.

“The group of folks who are pushing against childhood immunizations are going to use this as a wedge, that’s inevitable,” says Dr. Dobbs. “But the vast majority of folks see a very clear distinction between childhood vaccinations, which we’ve had for a long time, and COVID vaccine. And COVID vaccine has gotten tangled up in a whole bunch of controversial areas that other vaccines haven’t.”

A coronavirus vaccine mandate was enacted earlier this year for federal employees and those who work at large corporations. Mississippi is currently involved in a lawsuit to overturn these requirements. Dr. Dobbs says the new law does have some exceptions in the healthcare industry.

Dr. Dobbs says “Hospitals under the CMS requirement are exempted from this law. But I think a lot of the law was not really necessary because we were not going to add it as a childhood vaccine and we were not going to mandate it for anybody. We haven’t really done mandates from our office except regulatory oversight for folks who are under our licensing authority.”

Experts say if standard vaccination requirements are weakened, Mississippi could see a rise in mostly eradicated diseases such as polio.