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Republican Indiana lawmakers want natural immunity to COVID-19 from a previous infection to exempt certain residents from workplace vaccination requirements. The Indiana House, which is dominated by GOP lawmakers, may be able to debate approving the measures as soon as next week after a committee endorsed the bill in a 7-4 vote Thursday.
The contentious proposal has drawn criticism from Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb and GOP Senate leaders who have said that it hinders the ability of private businesses to make decisions. The idea of using natural immunity instead of vaccines as protection against contracting and transmitting the virus has also been called into question by medical studies.
The bill, which already included required medical or religious exemptions, would force employers to accept medical test results showing some level of infection-generated virus immunity in lieu of vaccination. It would make anyone who was fired for not getting a mandated COVID-19 vaccine eligible for unemployment benefits.
Republican House Majority Leader Matt Lehman said that companies could only ask employees for proof of natural immunity through another medical test once every six months. If COVID fighting antibodies are no longer detected, then "you'll be back and subject to the other exemptions because you can't show that immunity," Lehman said.
The House action follows conservative criticism of President Joe Biden's vaccine requirements for certain workers and two lengthy public hearings dominated by grievances over government-ordered virus precautions. Health experts argued that the limitations would hurt efforts to stem COVID-19 spread while the state's hospitals are strained with their highest overall patient counts.
The fast-spreading omicron variant has pushed Indiana's number of confirmed COVID-19 infections to an average of more than 9,000 a day, according to state Health Department tracking. That is the highest level during the pandemic as Indiana's hospitals were treating nearly 3,300 COVID-19 patients as of Tuesday — a number that is up about 170 percent from two months ago and the highest since mid-December 2020 before the vaccines were widely available.
Indiana's vaccination rate has stagnated for months despite pleas from Holcomb and medical groups for more people to get the shots. Indiana has the country's ninth-lowest rate for a fully vaccinated population at 52.1 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Republican House Speaker Todd Huston said people need to take responsibility for protecting themselves against COVID-19 and that he didn't believe businesses could rely on vaccinations to prevent spread among their employees.
"I think what we now have seen is that there was a belief that if we all got vaccinated, we could stop the spread, right? And we aren't stopping the spread," Huston said. "Vaccination protects me. It protects me. It doesn't mean that I can't give it to you."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
About the writer
Zoe Strozewski is a Newsweek reporter based in New Jersey. Her focus is reporting on U.S. and global politics. Zoe ... Read more