[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 212 (Wednesday, December 8, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9002-S9003]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                VACCINES

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, one more issue--the upcoming vaccine CRA.
  On another matter, reports this morning indicate that getting 
vaccinated and boosted offer significant protection against the Omicron 
variant.
  As we learn more about Omicron, it is an important moment for 
national leaders to double- and triple-down on encouraging all eligible 
Americans to get vaccinated and boosted as soon as possible.
  But as soon as today, our Republican friends are going to come to the 
floor to push an anti-science, anti-vaccine proposal to overturn the 
President's vaccines requirements for businesses with more than 100 
employees.
  My friends, America, we are in the middle of a public health crisis. 
Everyone sees the damage it causes to themselves, their friends, their 
families, and their communities, and the way to solve this is to be 
driven by science.
  We have had hundreds of years of scientific advancement. It has 
helped us live longer and live healthier. My dad just lived until 98. 
That didn't happen in a vacuum, and it certainly wouldn't have happened 
when there were scientific advances and people said, ``Let's not listen 
to them,'' for political, ideological, or whatever reasons. We cannot 
go back to the days when people were driven by wild theories.
  Some of the anti-vaxxers here in this Chamber remind me of what 
happened 400 years ago, when people were clinging to the fact that the 
Sun revolved around the Earth--they just didn't believe science--or 300 
years ago or 500 years ago, when they were sure the Earth was flat. It 
is just like that.
  The science is here. And what does the science show? The more people 
who get vaccinated, the greater chance we have to eliminate and, 
certainly, greatly reduce the virulence and ``widespreadness'' of this 
disease.
  People are resisting. Is it political? Is it fueled by lies on the 
internet? Is it just because people fear vaccines? We never had this 
outcry when we had to give our kids--my kids--mumps, measles vaccines 
before they went to school. We never had this outcry as people lined up 
to get flu shots.
  All of a sudden, something has happened here. It is wrong, and it is 
bad for the country, and it is not based on any scientific evidence 
whatsoever.
  I know that wild stories on the internet, lies, sometimes get in 
people's heads, but we can't listen to people's lies. We are a fact-
based society. We always have been.
  The biggest thing standing between us and the end of the pandemic is 
Americans who have refused to get vaccinated. Too many Americans 
believe a wide range of conspiracy theories

[[Page S9003]]

about vaccines, and even those who seem to encourage those crazy 
theories often get vaccinated themselves and don't tell anybody. We 
have had so many of these hard-right leaders admitting: ``Oh, yes, I 
did get vaccinated,'' even though they are telling people they 
shouldn't have to take one. ``Oh, yes, I will get vaccinated, but you 
shouldn't have to.''
  If the only damage were to the person, him or herself, who didn't get 
vaccinated, maybe some people would say that is OK. But it is not just 
to them because, when there is a large pool of people unvaccinated, 
even if it is not the majority, that allows the COVID virus to spread, 
to mutate, to create new variants, and create new stronger variants. It 
is a pool of people. If you greatly reduce that pool, you greatly 
reduce the chance of a new variant, particularly a virulent one, from 
afflicting us in the months ahead. It is crazy.
  The internet has had a role in spreading this, and so has the far 
right. The same people in the far right who want to tear down 
government and hurt working people in so many other ways are here doing 
the same thing--the same thing--even though, as I said, a good number 
of them get vaccinated themselves--hypocrisy.
  There should be one message, and one message only, coming from this 
Chamber to the American people: Get vaccinated. Get boosted. Stay safe 
yourself. Keep your families, your communities, and our country safe.
  The worst thing we can do is tie our own hands behind our backs and 
let these new variants spread and grow--new ones after Omicron and so 
many others. But that is what Republican-pushed ``anti-vaccines'' would 
do.
  I will strongly vote against this amendment. I have strong feelings 
about what is good for this country and about fighting anti-science and 
theories that seem to, as I said, come from the same place that the 
flat Earth theory came from, that the theory that the Sun revolves 
around the Earth came from. Anti-science, nonscience, fictional belief 
come from there. We ought not give it a stamp of approval in this 
Chamber.
  I yield the floor.

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