Vaccine mandates: State your right

Everyone on K Street now feels a lot like Joe Biden: COVID-19 and the pandemic’s countless ramifications just won’t go away, the unrelenting virus and proposed responses to it are displacing most everything on your agenda, and there are no ready solutions.

There is a sense of frustrated anticipation. An exasperated populace and a government rendered ineffective by partisan posturing is a formula for the unrest that is afflicting the country. The COVID-19 crisis may not be the direct cause of our national malaise, but it is surely the catalyst for much of the turbulent discontent disrupting our civic and personal lives.

COVID-19’s impact can be found everywhere. As cases rise, hospitals are once again overwhelmed by the unvaccinated. Schools can’t get untracked, and parents can’t return to normalcy. Labor markets are in turmoil, with unprecedented millions of people quitting—threatened by disease and no longer willing to deal with short staffs, long hours, and lagging pay—to seek any job more suited to their virus-altered lives. Try to factor in the millions unable to reenter the job market despite crying needs, burdened by unavoidable domestic responsibilities such as childcare and elder care.