No. 2: COVID-19 vaccines, mandates entry elicits mixed response

Just a year after the COVID-19 pandemic led to large-scale shutdowns, vaccines became available to all Missouri adults in April and have since expanded to kids over 5. The Food and Drug Administration approved emergency use authorizations for three vaccines, which were developed with unprecedented speed, as local health officials worked to overcome vaccine hesitancy.

Nearly 3.3 million people statewide, or 53% of the eligible population, have been fully vaccinated as of press time. At just half the eligible population vaccinated, Greene County lags slightly behind the state but far behind the Springfield-Greene County Health Department’s Finish Strong challenge of a 70% vaccination rate.

City and state COVID restrictions on gatherings and face masks lifted just before summer as many businesses returned, mostly, to pre-pandemic operations. Springfield’s largest employers, Mercy Springfield Communities and CoxHealth, announced in the summer they would require vaccines for all employees, with some exceptions. CoxHealth officials reported 64 people among its 12,200-person workforce refused to comply with the mandate and were terminated. At Mercy, officials said roughly 97% of employees complied with the mandate by deadline.

In September, the Biden administration revealed plans to require all U.S. employers with over 100 employees to require vaccines or regularly test for COVID-19. Gov. Mike Parson called the mandate unconstitutional, and the state attorney general’s office joined a motion for an emergency stay in the U.S. Supreme Court to halt the ruling after an appeals court upheld the mandate’s constitutionality in mid-December. The state was part of efforts to obtain injunctions against the administration’s vaccine mandates for federal contractors and health care workers.

The year ended with a push for adults and teens to receive booster shots as a new variant of the virus rapidly became dominant among coronavirus cases. Health officials say the omicron variant is extremely transmissible, but much remains unknown as to the severity of the illness it causes.