WITF: Just 1 in 10 Philly cops reported their vaccination status, but city still says no to stricter vaccine mandate

From the WITF. Philadelphia officials have again declined to impose a stricter vaccine mandate on municipal workers –– even as the city revealed that barely one in 10 police officers and less than a quarter of all firefighters have submitted proof of vaccination. While other large cities, such as Chicago and New York, are toughening enforcement of vaccine mandates for municipal employees –– and dealing with blowback from vaccine-hesitant workers –– officials in Philadelphia doubled down on their current policy of voluntary compliance. “We don’t have that type of vaccine mandate that New York has,” Dr. Cheryl Bettigole, interim head of the city’s Department of Public Health, said at a Wednesday press conference. “It’s not a ‘vaccine-or-be-terminated’ mandate, it’s a requirement to either be vaccinated or double-mask.” Jessica Fishman, whose Message Effects lab at the University of Pennsylvania is studying the effect of vaccine mandates among other proposed tactics for increasing vaccination rates, said that historical data shows vaccine mandates of various kinds have been successful in the United States. “There’s been a lot of fears about mandates,” she said. “But until we have data to support those fears, it seems unwise to make decisions based on just fear alone.” Read the full story in WITF.