North Jersey GOP lawmakers slammed Gov. Phil Murphy after he signed an executive order mandating healthcare and high-risk congregate workers must be fully vaccinated with no test-out option
State Sens. Anthony Bucco and Holly Schepisi said the declaration from the governor will only increase the staffing issues group homes and long-term care facilities are facing.
“Nursing homes, group homes, and veterans homes are already struggling to find enough skilled staff to care for New Jersey’s most vulnerable residents,” said Bucco (R-25). “By eliminating the testing alternative to vaccination for workers in these settings, Gov. Murphy is virtually guaranteeing that residents will face a shortage of caregivers. That will lead to unnecessary tragedies in facilities that have already sustained thousands of deaths during the pandemic.”
Vaccine Mandate
The executive order on Jan. 19 gives a deadline for those in the healthcare community by Jan. 27 to get their first vaccine dose and to be fully vaccinated by Feb. 28. For those in high-risk congregate living facilities, they are required by Feb. 28 to get the first dose and March 30 for the second. As for those who are fully vaccinated but have not yet received their booster, healthcare workers are mandated to receive a third shot of Moderna or Pfizer or a second shot of Johnson & Jonson by Feb. 28 and high-risk congregate living facility workers by March 30.
“We are no longer going to look past those who continue to put their colleagues and, perhaps I think even more importantly, those who are their responsibility, in danger of COVID,” said Murphy. “That has to stop.”
“Crazy” Decision
Bucco called the decision to eliminate the testing option “crazy” as residents in group homes and other congregate care facilities often have few options when the level of care deteriorates or their facility closes.
“With the high transmissibility of Omicron among the vaccinated, testing workers makes more sense than vaccination to keep LTC residents safe,” said Bucco. “I don’t understand why Governor Murphy would eliminate the option that appears to be the most dependable.”
Schepisi argued the new mandate will lead to a shortage of doctors and nurses in New Jersey in the aftermath of the Omicron surge and “certainly won’t be good for patients.”
Staffing Impact
“Doctors, nurses, and other medical caregivers have been fighting this fight against COVID-19 since the very beginning,” said Schepisi (R-39). “After nearly two years, they’re tired, they’re burnt out, and they’re ready for a break. Instead of giving them extra support, they’re getting another new mandate from Governor Murphy that will further thin their ranks and increase the workload of those who remain.”
Schepisi questioned the logic of the governor’s new order, pointing to an from Israel study that demonstrated that boosters and even a fourth dose of a COVID vaccine do little to protect against the transmission of the Omicron variant.
“The governor’s executive orders stopped being about science long ago,” said Schepisi. “There’s absolutely no data in support of this new executive vaccine mandate on health care workers. Even worse, Governor Murphy’s order may actually lead to greater spread of COVID in healthcare facilities by eliminating the testing option which with Omicron is proving to be a safer alternative to determine if someone is positive as vaccines have proven to be ineffective at stopping the transmission of this variant.”
Need to Work with Lawmakers
Additionally, Schepisi declared that the order was just the latest example of Murphy overreaching without policy decisions should be made in consultation with the Legislature. The GOP lawmaker noted eight counties have seen their infection rates drop by at least 40%, including Bergen, Essex, Middlesex, Monmouth, Passaic, Somerset and Union counties.
“We’re at the stage of the pandemic where there’s no excuse to circumvent the legislative process,” added Schepisi. “While Omicron surged through New Jersey over the past month, this week the numbers have drastically declined. Nothing about this order is so urgent that it needs to be done today.”
“We should discuss this kind of policy change in an open and transparent manner, and we should give healthcare workers the opportunity to tell us their concerns. After everything they’ve been through, they know a hell of a lot more about the impact of this virus than Governor Murphy ever will.”
Operator, Family Concerns
Among that group to get feedback from, Bucco said he has spoken to the operators of a number of facilities and the families of residents and they all are extremely concerned about maintaining staffing levels and the quality of care.
“What’s Governor Murphy’s plan for backfilling critical positions when nursing and veterans home workers who have concerns about the vaccine are fired?” asked the Morris County lawmaker. “He better have an answer before he enforces another potentially disastrous order.”
This is news? Of course Republicans “slam” it; it was proposed by a Democrat. Standard operating procedure.
GOP criminally negligent homicide (or is it genocide?), continued.
I fully agree with you. What else could be expected
If you have unvaccinated healthcare workers, even if testing is done, you have an increased risk of infecting patients. Now, if, as many Republicans do, you think that COVID is no big deal, even for vulnerable patients, then of course, you don’t want the workers to be required to be vaccinated. Or, if, as many Republicans do, you think for-profit medical establishments might have to cough up more money for staffing in order to lure workers from a slightly reduced pool of the vaccinated to their establishments, then, of course, it’d be bad to require vaccinations, even if it protected the establishment’s biggest asset, their patients.
On the other hand, if you want to pander to less educated, less scientifically-aware constituencies (i.e. Republicans) in order to ascend to higher office, then, of course, you want to give them what they want, not what’s actually in the wider public health interest.
Regarding Sen. Schepisi’s citing of the Israeli study, she misunderstands it. The studied showed that vaccines don’t work as well on Omicron, but they do prevent severe disease and reduce transmission somehwhat. Every bit of mitigation helps, and should be implemented. We run the risk of losing out in an effort to achieve the perfect, when we can benefit from a less-than-perfect vaccine, while variant-specific or broader-spectrum vaccines are developed. Once they are available, healthcare workers should be required to update their boosters.
unvaxxed people are no threat to anyone. Naturally covid recovered people have superior durable immunity and are not a threat to anyone. The vaccines do not stop infection spread or transmission. There is no medical legal or moral justification to mandate them for ANYONE. People in the first two weeks after the receive the vax have an increased risk of infection, hospitalization and death. The vaxxes are causing large numbers of injuries and deaths all over the world. In the full ness of time it will be shown that the vaccines have not worked except to possibly reduce hostpitalization and death in a very small group of at risk people. These vaxxes do NOT , they do NOT stop infection ,or transmission and therefore there is no justification for vax passes,or mandates of any kind. Vaxing health children is a crime. Children are the least at risk of the entire population.
Everything you said is false, Dirk. I can provide study, after study, after study that proves this, but have already done so on previous threads. The vaccines do help to prevent transmission, though it is true that they aren’t as effective at doing that with Omicron as they were with Delta and earlier strains. They also prevent severe disease in not only vulnerable people but in most people, including children, who are becoming among the highest demographics requiring hospitalization, thanks to their largely unvaccinated status and the nature of the Omicron strain itself.
While vaccinated people can transmit infection if they get infected, they are somewhat less likely to do so when compared with unvaccinated people. It is NOT true that people have an increased risk of infection within 2 weeks after vaccination. You are distorting the facts. What is true is that they have less protection than someone who is more than 2 weeks out from the vaccine, because the body takes time to build the additional antibodies. But their protection level does not decline from their pre-vaccination level in the period immediately post-vaccination. That is simply a falsehood and I challenge you to provide a single study that proves otherwise.
YES!! AND; Many people do Concur with you, State Sens. Anthony Bucco and Holly Schepisi, about these Vaccine Mandates!! Many feel, that these Mandates 0nly seem to benefit those Huge Pharma Conglomerates & All their interlocking Affiliates,{which 0ught to be Broken up For’n the Good 0f Every0ne}!! S0; We’ve seen people’s repeatedly getting this here China’s Covid-19 & their Varigances after being fully Jabbed with these Vaxxes & those Booster’s!! And some dyeing 0ff just as fast as not having received the JAB!! I thought that Vaccines were supposed to Protect & Prevent; But these JAB’S are Psychological Feel-Good Band Aides, Protecting Little & Preventing Nothing!! L00K; We’re all Boren to Die & that’s just the way it is; so it’s best to accept it..//
Rob, So, I guess we should just avoid imperfect seatbelt laws, speed limits, DUI laws, or any other public safety measures, because, after all, they don’t work 100% and we’re “born to die”?