We have previously reported on Acting Health Commissioner Cheryl Bettigole and Philadelphia’s vaccine mandate:

Cheryl Bettigole, MD, from her Twitter biography.

Many Philadelphia health workers remain unvaccinated two months before shots will be required

by Laura McCrystal | Wednesday, August 18, 2021

Acting Health Commissioner Cheryl Bettigole said many institutions have applauded Philadelphia’s new vaccine mandate for health care workers, but noted that many employees remain unvaccinated.

More than a dozen long-term care facilities in Philadelphia have less than 50% of their staff vaccinated, she said.

”If you’re more committed to not getting the vaccine than to the safety of your patients, it’s time to do something else,” she said at a Wednesday news briefing. “Health care is not for you.”

Let’s tell the truth here: health care employees at all levels have been exposed to constant, continuous education and pleas to get vaccinated. If they actually wanted to get vaccinated, they would have by now. One might ask why, in a city which gave 81.44% of its votes has so many unvaccinated people.

Like so many on the left,^[1]Given this tweet of hers, I think there’s sufficient evidence to associate Dr Bettigole with the political left. Dr Bettigole not only knows what’s best for other people, but insists that it’s her way of the highway. The problem with that is that many, who have already resisted the months’ long pressure to take the vaccines, are going to continue to refuse. What will happen to health care facilities in our nation’s sixth largest city if, say, 25% or 35% of the workforce has to be discharged because they have refused to be vaccinated?

We noted the difficulty in hiring people, and that trained and licensed or certified people, such as nurses, nursing assistants and other hospital technicians, can’t just be replaced by people off the street.

And now, reality has bitten:

Philadelphia extends vaccine mandate deadline for health-care and higher-education workers

The change came after many employers requested more time to get their workers fully vaccinated.

by Laura McCrystal and Erin McCarthy | Wednesday, October 6, 2021

Philadelphia is extending its deadline for health-care workers and higher-education students and employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, acting Health Commissioner Cheryl Bettigole announced Wednesday, citing concern from employers that they would be unable to meet next week’s deadline.

“My goal is to get everyone vaccinated and not leave our health-care and higher-education systems shorthanded,” Bettigole said.

Instead of being fully vaccinated by the end of next week, staff of hospitals and long-term care facilities, along with higher-education students, faculty, and staff now must receive at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine by Oct. 15 and a second dose a month later.

Bettigole announced an even longer extension for all other health-care workers, including those who work as home health aides and in behavioral health settings — which she said have the lowest vaccination rates. Those workers now must receive at least one dose of the vaccine by Oct. 22 and a second dose by Nov. 22.

So much for her statement, “If you’re more committed to not getting the vaccine than to the safety of your patients, it’s time to do something else. Health care is not for you.” Now her concern is having enough people in health care!

But, notice the timeline here. Instead of “being fully vaccinated” by Friday, October 15^th, which would mean that a person would have had to have received his last dose by Friday, October 1^st, Dr Bettigole and the city are saying that nurses, nursing assistants, radiology technicians, etc, must take their first dose by next Friday.

This can mean only one thing: not only did a lot of such students and workers not begin to comply with the city’s demands back in August, but a lot didn’t try to comply later, either.

The extension requires that the employees receive the first dose by October 15^th, and the second a month later. Does this mean that, after next Friday, an employee who does not present proof of having gotten the first shout will be suspended or discharged? Work schedules for hospitals and nursing homes, which are open 24/7, are, in most cases, already completed for well after mid-October; next Friday could be scramble time!

Getting vaccinated takes only a few minutes per dose, most of that dedicated to filling out the paperwork. Hospitals could have set up vaccination rooms in which staff could have walked down during a mid-morning or mid-afternoon break to get the jab, and return straight to work, without missing any time. With the vaccines now in plentiful supply, and a lot of medically trained personnel in the workplace who could administer the shots, anyone who was willing to take the shots could have gotten the shots.

Under the city’s mandate, exemptions were possible. Exempt personnel would be required to wear masks — something to which hospital personnel are already accustomed — and be tested twice a week. Given that even those fully vaccinated can contract, and spread, the virus, one would think that they would have to be tested as well, right?

As we have previously reported, the Philadelphia School District tests everybody once a week, and will now test the unvaccinated twice a week. The ‘incentive’ to get vaccinated is simply to halve the number of tests to which employees must submit. The original, August mandate, issued appropriately enough on Friday the 13^th, required the unvaccinated to be tested at least once a week. The city is doubling up on that, using the punishment of physical discomfort, in an attempt to force compliance.

Have you ever had a COVID test? It involves a nurse sticking a cotton swab on a long stick far up your nose, to collect material from within your sinuses. It’s hardly fatal, and leaves no (known) lasting damage, but, then again, neither does waterboarding prisoners at Guantanamo. If that comparison seems strained, remember, the purpose is the same: to force compliance from someone who does not wish to go along with your demands.

Dr Bettigole stated that she does not intend to extend the deadline again:

We’ve seen from other places that have implemented vaccine mandates that they work, that workers do step up and get their vaccines despite lots of anxiety before the deadlines.

Well, it didn’t work last time, to the extent that the deadlines had to be extended, or too many personnel would be lost. Considering that the first deadline didn’t work, if we assume that those who didn’t comply were the most strongly opposed to vaccination, might this extension have even less success?

Dr Bettigole’s phraseology is repugnant. She stated that, with the mandates, “workers do step up and get their vaccines despite lots of anxiety.” Translation: they had to choose between taking something in their bodies that they did not want, or losing their jobs. How is that different from a supervisor saying that you have to have sex with him or get fired? But Dr Bettigole sees knuckling under to coercion as “step(ping) up.” Utterly vile and repugnant, but authoritarians rarely see their dictates as being for anything other than the betterment of society.