FPIDS, the principal investigator for both the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson phase 3 trials.

Covid-19 is also hitting Black and Latinx people the hardest, making them a higher priority for vaccination. For all these reasons, many people have called for extra efforts in recruiting Black and Latinx participants to the trials.

“We want to make sure in our clinical trials to recruit diverse populations, broadly defined,” said C. Buddy Creech, MD, MPH, FPIDS, the principal investigator for both the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson phase 3 trials. “We want individual citizens to be able to look at the clinical trial populations and know that someone a lot like them participated in the trials, including racial and ethnic diversity.”

In the Pfizer phase 3 trials, 9% of the participants were Black, 28% were Latinx, and 0.5% were Native American. It would be ideal to have higher percentages of these populations, but enough are enrolled that the company will eventually be able to compare efficacy across different races and ethnicities. (There aren’t enough total infections yet to determine that right now.) But since everyone in the trials has already received the vaccine, enough data does exist to say that the vaccine is equally safe in Black, Latinx, and Native Americans as in white Americans.

https://www.woodloch.com/hie/olp/video-c-v-b-nfl-pass-05.html
https://www.woodloch.com/hie/olp/video-c-v-b-nfl-pass-06.html
https://www.woodloch.com/hie/olp/video-c-v-b-nfl-pass-07.html
https://www.woodloch.com/hie/olp/video-c-v-b-nfl-pass-08.html
https://www.woodloch.com/hie/olp/video-fcb-v-gra-hd-viv-tv1.html
https://www.woodloch.com/hie/olp/video-fcb-v-gra-hd-viv-tv2.html
https://www.woodloch.com/hie/olp/video-fcb-v-gra-hd-viv-tv3.html
https://www.woodloch.com/hie/olp/video-fcb-v-gra-hd-viv-tv4.html
https://www.woodloch.com/hie/olp/video-fcb-v-gra-hd-viv-tv5.html
https://www.woodloch.com/hie/olp/video-fcb-v-gra-hd-viv-tv6.html
https://www.woodloch.com/hie/olp/video-fcb-v-gra-hd-viv-tv7.html
https://www.woodloch.com/hie/olp/video-fcb-v-gra-hd-viv-tv8.html
https://www.woodloch.com/hie/olp/video-Se-v-Ra-hd-nfl-liv-xa1.html
https://www.woodloch.com/hie/olp/video-Se-v-Ra-hd-nfl-liv-xa2.html
https://www.woodloch.com/hie/olp/video-Se-v-Ra-hd-nfl-liv-xa3.html
https://www.woodloch.com/hie/olp/video-Se-v-Ra-hd-nfl-liv-xa4.html
https://www.woodloch.com/hie/olp/video-Se-v-Ra-hd-nfl-liv-xa5.html
https://www.woodloch.com/hie/olp/video-Se-v-Ra-hd-nfl-liv-xa6.html
https://www.woodloch.com/hie/olp/video-Se-v-Ra-hd-nfl-liv-xa7.html
https://www.woodloch.com/hie/olp/video-Se-v-Ra-hd-nfl-liv-xa8.html

Image for postImage for post
Vaccine Mandates
Q: Can the government require me to get vaccinated?

Neither the federal government nor any state governments have proposed requiring eligible people to receive the vaccine, and that’s unlikely to change, even after full FDA licensure of the vaccine would make it legal to do so. Anthony Fauci said at a town hall that he doesn’t expect the federal government ever to mandate a vaccine, and it’s not possible to force someone to get a vaccine. The public blowback from such a requirement makes it politically risky as well. “Mandates should usually be only a last resort when uptake is too low to provide community immunity,” Greyson said. Though she has heard others bring it up as a fear, she hasn’t heard of any plans for mandates.

Cox agreed that any discussion of mandates is premature right now. “It’s too early to consider mandates before the safety is established, the supply chains are formed, the vaccine distribution is adequate, and we have properly studied and communicated the risks and benefits to the public,” she said. The goal right now is to “focus on making the vaccine available to as many people who want it first.”

There is a historical precedent upholding the government’s right to require vaccination for the good of public health, though. The Supreme Court case Jacobson v. Massachusetts established in 1905 that local health authorities could require vaccination when it was essential for public health, with some exceptions (including medical conditions that prevented safe vaccination). But it’s rare that any governments actually invoke this right. One recent exception was New York Mayor Bill de Blasio requiring unvaccinated residents of certain zip codes to get the measles vaccine during the measles outbreak in 2019, and even that was narrowly limited to the zip codes with the most transmission.

In the unlikely case that a state, county, or city did try to require Covid-19 vaccination after full FDA approval, it would undoubtedly end up in court and possibly back at the Supreme Court, where the result is anyone’s guess.

Q: Is it legal for my employer to require me to get the vaccine?

Generally speaking, employers have wide latitude in requiring working conditions in the interest of health and safety, and courts generally do not second guess an employer’s judgment, including the use of vaccination requirements, according to Dorit Reiss, a professor of law at the University of California Hastings Law School, who specializes in vaccination law.