Motion to Discharge

Floor Speech

Now, Agencies like the CDC and NIH are already looking closely at data on COVID infection and natural immunity. They have been since the earliest days of this pandemic.

In an August ``Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report,'' CDC assessed data from Kentucky and found that out of a group of people who had been infected with COVID before, those who were unvaccinated were twice as likely to get COVID again than the people who were vaccinated. In other words, being unvaccinated puts you at higher risk of being reinfected, period.

Getting vaccinated is a necessary step to protect you but also to protect those around you.

We are in the middle of the deadliest pandemic in American history. It has now killed 700,000 people and counting. If we are going to end this thing, if we are going to reopen our economy, if we are going to save lives, we need to get everyone vaccinated when they are eligible.

We don't need politicians suggesting they know more than those experts and ignoring the data. We don't need bills meant to weaken one of our strongest tools to get this thing behind us, like the ones that Republicans have repeatedly been pressing for.

Workplace safety standards are nothing new in this country. Immunization requirements are nothing new in this country. And let's be clear. The vaccine requirements President Biden has enacted so far include tailored exemptions for legitimate religious and medical considerations that have long been standard. The emergency temporary standard he has envisioned would allow testing as an alternative.

People are dying every day. Families are scared, and they are tired, and they are angry that even as they try so hard to do the right thing so we can end this crisis, their hard work is being undermined.

So can the Republicans stop the theatrics and stop wasting our time? Can they stop pretending they know more than the experts about this disease? Is that too much to ask?

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