As a key Greater Clevelander lawmaker recently said, General Assembly members should undergo vaccination against COVID-19 virus to encourage their constituents – Ohio’s 11.7 million residents – to do the same. (As of Thursday, about 3.9 million people had obtained at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine in Ohio.)
“We should be leading by example, and that begins by doing the things we know will end the pandemic – masking up and signing up for vaccines when we’re eligible,” House Minority Leader Emilia Sykes, an Akron Democrat, recently told the Cincinnati Enquirer.
She’s correct. And to a degree, many of Sykes’s fellow legislators appear to agree with her.
For instance, the Cincinnati Enquirer recently reported, “Despite rhetoric at the Ohio Statehouse minimizing COVID-19 and questioning vaccines, many Republican lawmakers and nearly all Democrats are getting the COVID-19 shot.” The newspaper found that, “Of the 89 Republicans in both chambers, 41 said they either received a shot or planned to get one. Eight said they didn’t plan to get it; six said they were undecided. The rest did not respond by publication.” Some positions were gleaned from news reports, including a Dayton Daily News survey, the Enquirer said.
The Daily News asked Miami Valley legislators if they’d be vaccinated, “Six … said no; 11 said yes and four either declined to answer or didn’t respond.”
Among the noes was Rep. Bill Dean, a Xenia Republican, whose district includes Gov. Mike DeWine’s Cedarville homestead. “I don’t trust the vaccine. Basically, the whole COVID thing is bogus,” Dean told the Dayton newspaper. “I think it’s real, like the flu, but it’s not a pandemic.” Survivors of the 18,741 Ohioans killed by COVID-19 (as of Tuesday) likely wouldn’t agree with Dean.
Meanwhile, a suburban Cincinnati Republican, Rep. Jennifer Gross, is sponsoring a bill to forbid the state, local governments and businesses to discriminate financially or socially (defined to include requiring masks) against Ohioans who decline to be vaccinated for any of three reasons: Medical contraindications; natural immunity; or reasons of conscience, “including religious convictions. " The Gross bill’s cosponsors include Greater Cleveland Republican Reps. Sarah Fowler Arthur, of Rock Creek; Mike Loychik, of suburban Warren; Reggie Stoltzfus, of suburban Canton; and Scott Wiggam, of Wooster.
To sum up: Amid Ohio’s worst public health emergency in a century, some General Assembly members are leading not by example, but by negative example. And that’s utterly irresponsible.
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April 11, 2021 at 04:34PM
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Shame on Ohio General Assembly members who prevaricate when asked to lead by example and get vaccinated - cleveland.com
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