South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster (R) is looking to prevent President Biden’s proposed “door-to-door” coronavirus vaccination campaign.
McMaster wrote a letter to the state’s Board of Health and Environmental Control, asking it to “issue direction to agency leadership and to state and local healthcare organizations prohibiting the use of the Biden Administration’s ‘targeted’ ‘door to door’ tactics in the State’s ongoing vaccination efforts.”
He argued that “enticing, coercing, intimidating, mandating, or pressuring” people to get their shots will deteriorate public trust in the state’s vaccination efforts.
“The prospect of government vaccination teams showing up unannounced or unrequested at the door of ‘targeted’ homeowners or on their property will further deteriorate the public’s trust and could lead to potentially disastrous public safety consequences,” he said.
Biden highlighted door-to-door community outreach on Tuesday as part of his new COVID-19 strategy after falling short of his goal of having at least 70 percent of Americans get at least one vaccine dose by July 4.
The effort has since drawn criticisms from Republicans.
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson (R) said he doesn’t want the government to “compel vaccinations.”
And Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich criticized the strategy in letter to Biden, raising concerns about the possibility of the government using private medical information to find out who is not vaccinated.
“Let’s keep the bureaucrats out of American neighborhoods and keep these health care decisions between people and their trusted medical professionals,” Brnovich said.
The administration has addressed the assertion that federal employees are compelling Americans to get vaccinated.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday that federal employees were not the ones going door-to-door, but rather volunteers at the local level.
Jeff Zients, White House coronavirus response coordinator, also said Thursday that anyone spreading misinformation about the effort is “doing a disservice to the country and to the doctors, the faith leaders, community leaders, and others who are working to get people vaccinated, save lives, and help end this pandemic.”