here s an embarrassing statistic. as of thursday, within the g-7 club of industrialized nations, the u.s. is now dead last in the race to vaccinate its population. of the g-7, the u.s. officially has the lowest of population that has received at least one dose after being surpassed by japan this week. no wonder president biden felt the need to act in a big way. on thursday, biden used the full force of his presidency to mandate that all companies with more than 100 workers require vaccination or weekly testing and the republican outrage that followed should come as no surprise at this point. they claim to be pro-life, but they don t care about death from covid. the washington post found of the 23 states with per capita case totals higher than the national average, 21 swung for trump in 2020. shock. and 16 of those states are among the 17 that have the lowest rates of vaccination in the
polarizing topic even before the pandemic, but now it s really supercharged and political and people are taking ideological stances against vaccination rather than one that is driven by science and the best public health recommendations. so it s not surprising, but incredibly frustrating. sars coronavirus doesn t care which political party you advocate for. it s just looking for susceptible people to infect. indeed, well put. republicans though are grasping at straws looking for weird comparisons and analogies when it comes to mandating the covid-19 vaccine. have a listen to nebraska governor pete rickets when asked about covid-19 and vaccinating kids. we can look at the data specifically around children and see the risks. last year in nebraska, if you were aged 10 to 19, you were 26 times more likely to die in a car accident than you were of
to sign on the dotted line to force this recall election and now it s going down hopefully big because people see how real coronavirus is. number two, the vaccines and getting the pandemic behind us and reopening the economy as opposed to what larry elder and some of the others would do away with the covid protections that have been put in place. i think it s pretty ironic, but let s be clear, mehdi, this election is hugely consequential. not just for california, but for the country. the nation s eyes are on california. see what california voters are going to decide and a hope we defeat this recall in a big way and send that strong message going to the 2022 midterms. so, senator, let me ask you this. it is a hugely consequential action. california is one of the biggest committees of the world and yet you have an extremist, an unqualified guy like larry elder who was neck and neck with
kids. the reason is because you want to make sure there are no safety signals you re missing in the kids. also because covid-19 doesn t really cause severe disease in most of the kids who get it, that s not to say it doesn t cause severe disease as all. i m not minimizing this for children, but the vast majority of kids who do get covid-19 won t have really severe symptoms. it makes it hard to evaluate vaccine effectiveness. normally, we would look at measurements that you can take in a lab that basically are surrogates for how well the vaccine is going to protect, but we don t actually have really well defined protection for these vaccines. so that has made the process just take a little longer and then finally, the fda has asked the trials to be designed so that half the children who are participating in the trial have to wait two months after they ve had their full vaccination series in the trial to assess safety. to make sure there are no
covid-19. i mean, car accidents aren t contagious, are they? they re not contagious and that s why we also have seat belt laws which i don t see governor rickets or any of the other people who are opposed to vaccine mandates objecting to seat belt laws. i think that one thing that people really need to understand is that sure, you have the freedom to make medical decisions for yourself, but the decision not to get vaccinated is actually not a decision that only affects you. it effects lots of people in your community and household since not everybody is eligible to receive a vaccine at this point. so i don t understand why people who are advocating for rejecting vaccine mandates are understanding this is any different from the mandates we ve had for decades. that s how we vanquished polio, measles. this is not something new and it s not an assault on our liberty and freedom.