If science truly was on the recall ballot, it’s time for Newsom to mandate COVID vaccines

Throughout the recall campaign, Gov. Gavin Newsom said science and California’s ongoing response to COVID-19 were on the ballot. The leading Republican challengers eagerly made the case on Newsom’s behalf by promising to roll back all public health mandates and avoid issuing new ones.

When Newsom gave his victory speech Tuesday night, a little over an hour after polls closed and a landslide was assured, it was the first thing he emphasized. And why wouldn’t he? It worked.

“I want to focus on what we said ‘yes’ to as a state,” Newsom said. “We said yes to science. We said yes to vaccines. We said yes to ending this pandemic.”

Well, then, let’s end it. Newsom was given a compelling new mandate this week to keep steering California through the pandemic. With the recall fading in the rear-view, it’s time for the governor to stop weighing politics and start making the same unflinching public health decisions that saved lives when we were first confronted with this novel virus.

California needs statewide vaccine requirements that protect the public and ensure schools, businesses, workplaces and events can proceed without further devastation. That means following the example of places like San Francisco, Los Angeles County and parts of the East Bay and instituting proof-of-vaccine requirements for restaurants, bars, gyms and large indoor and outdoor events.

Additionally, California’s Department of Public Health needs to issue recommendations that push private employers to get their workforce vaccinated, helping remove the ambiguity that has prevented many companies from acting in their own best interest.

The experiment with local control is not working. Political forces have paralyzed local health officials and prevented elected leaders from upholding their vows to serve their communities, no matter the cost. Public meetings of school boards, county supervisors and city councils are overrun by conspiracy theorists. In many areas, a vocal minority is preventing action.

Now, months into the delta variant surge, a death divide has emerged between liberal and more conservative or rural areas, as the San Francisco Chronicle aptly described it. Last month, more COVID patients were hospitalized in Amador, Del Norte, Humboldt, Lake, Mendocino, Placer, Plumas, Shasta and Tuolumne counties than at any other point in the pandemic.

This is not what Patrick Henry meant when he said, “Give me liberty or give me death.” California cannot let the politics of the pandemic get in the way of doing the right thing for its citizens.

As of this week, nearly 69% of eligible California residents are fully vaccinated. But much of those numbers are skewed because of major metropolitan areas such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, and San Jose where 75% or more of eligible residents have received at least one dose. Further inland, the rates are much lower, and — while the delta variant did spur more jabs — herd immunity remains a pipe dream. We must not resign ourselves to complacency and accept the cynical view that it’s impossible to reach.

The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID vaccine has been fully authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for anyone 16 and older. It shares the same regulatory status as our vaccines for measles, smallpox, Hepatitis B, and polio — the very vaccines we require children to get for school to keep these diseases almost nonexistent in our communities.

With the pandemic now preying on the unvaccinated, preventable death has become virtually the only type of COVID-related death.

Newsom should feel unencumbered after the recall election. Moreover, he has an obligation to act decisively to protect public health. California cannot afford to sit idle with the riskier fall and winter months ahead.