A lot of people, apparently. Don’t expect it to make much difference, though.
Most Texans support measures requiring all eligible people to get vaccinated against COVID-19, according to a recent survey.
More than 65 percent of Texans said they would support vaccine mandates issued by federal, state or local governments; the national average was 64 percent. More than 70 percent of Texans would support vaccine requirements to board an airplane; more than 62 percent would support vaccine mandates for children returning to schools; and 67 percent would support them for students returning to universities.
The findings come as some private businesses begin requiring vaccines, but government leaders have resisted such mandates as they’ve struggled to convince large numbers of Americans to get vaccinated, even as the more contagious delta variant spreads. Less than 53 percent of Texans are fully vaccinated, according to state data.
President Joe Biden last week announced that federal workers will have to sign forms attesting they’ve been vaccinated or else be required to wear masks, take weekly tests and more.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, meanwhile, issued an executive order last week barring local governments from limiting the capacity of restaurants and other businesses or requiring facial coverings, even if they are located in a hospital region with a high level of COVID-19 patients.
Abbott and other Texas Republicans have vocally opposed the idea of mandating vaccines.
The national poll was conducted in June and July by the COVID States Project, a group of researchers at Northeastern University, Harvard University, Rutgers University and Northwestern University. It included a survey of 707 Texans and findings in the state carried a margin of error of 4.7 percentage points.
The survey found Americans strongly support vaccine mandates, but there big gaps between Democrats and Republicans, and urban and rural residents.
The poll is here, and here’s the description: “Between June 9and July 7,2021, we surveyed 20,669 individuals across all 50 states plus the District of Columbia. The survey was conducted by PureSpectrum via an online, nonprobability sample, with state-level representative quotas for race/ethnicity, age, and gender (for methodological details on the other waves, see covidstates.org). In addition to balancing on these dimensions, we reweighted our data using demographic characteristics to match the U.S. population with respect to race/ethnicity, age, gender, education, and living in urban, suburban, or rural areas. This was the latest in a series of surveys we have been conducting since April 2020, examining attitudes and behaviors regarding COVID-19 in the United States.” In other words, a poll of adults, not registered voters, which tends to produce results more favorable to my preferred position. There was greater support, overall and in Texas, for requiring a vaccine to get on a plane, and varying levels for requiring a vaccine to go to school or college.
Like I said, I don’t know how much difference this makes. There are mandates of varying aggressiveness going out now for federal employees, some big private companies like WalMart and Disney, and some hospital systems here in Houston. I think a mandate for getting on an airplane is doable, and I hope that happens in the next week or so. Beyond that, it’s hard to say. It’s incredibly crappy that our malevolent governor refuses to let local governments mandate it for their employees, but maybe more private companies will step up. And hopefully soon we’ll get the final FDA approval, as well as initial approval for kids under the age of 12. Vax numbers are trending up a bit nationally now, especially in the hardest-hit states as some of the holdouts there are starting to get the message. It’s not fast enough and of course we never should have been in this position in the first place, but it’s better than what had been happening before. It’s going to be a rough month or two, so hold on and stay safe. Vox has more.