Suzanne Downing: Biden isn’t following the science; if he did, he would have mandated shots for postal workers

President Biden’s vaccine mandate for employers with more than 100 workers doesn’t follow the science. If it did, he would have included the U.S. Postal Service in his executive order.

Instead, postal workers are exempt. Welfare recipients are exempt, even though they have what can be considered a contract with the federal government — they get money. Congress and congressional staff are exempt from the Biden mandate. Immigrants flooding through the southern border are exempt.

There is no science that says a postal carrier, welfare recipient, or illegal immigrant is somehow immune from the Covid-19 virus.

If he is not following the science, then what is Biden following? Politics. If the president had included the Postal Service, he was probably advised that the system would collapse, as so many workers would quit. Some of them would go postal.

Even before the pandemic, the U.S. Postal Service had been in deep financial trouble. Post offices have been closing, and rural mail delivery is unreliable, with thousands of positions eliminated in an agency that is chronically on the brink of running out of money.

In 2019, the U.S. Postal Service’s Inspector General reported that 42% of post offices were not making enough money to cover their expenses.

With 580,000 employees, the U.S. Postal Service has a bigger workforce than any other independent government agency.

The Postal Service started its serious decline in the early 2000s, and by 2005 Congress had passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, which was signed into law by President George W. Bush at the end of 2006. It required the USPS to move toward more austerity to live within its means.

Then came the 2008 recession and advertising mail, which is the mainstay of USPS revenue, took a hit. The decline deepened.

Today, many workers at the Postal Service could and would simply walk, if they were mandated to take the vaccine. Mail carriers in rural America would be among the first to walk. No amount of infrastructure spending could repair the damage.

Who has been following the science? Republican governors like Florida’s Ron DeSantis and Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy. Neither of them has enacted onerous, crushing mandates on their people. Both have promoted vaccines, but have said it is a personal choice that people should make in consultation with their doctors. Neither of them has issued a statewide mask mandate, because it’s not supported by science.

Both have taken the middle path, trying to strike the right balance, so that people don’t necessarily suffer from government overreaction that harms their health in unintended ways. That middle path has proven to be the correct path, as we now see “the science” keeps changing month after month.

Statista released one of its latest graphics on Sept. 27, which reveals that Republican governors are actually doing better in managing Covid-19 than their Democrat counterparts.

For death rates (per 100,000) from Covid, Vermont, Hawaii, and Alaska rank the best; Vermont and Alaska are run by Republican governors; Hawaii is solidly Democrat.

Although Florida is home to some of the oldest people in America (Maine is number one, Florida is number 2 for having the most people over the age of 65), Desantis doesn’t have a state with a particularly high death rate from Covid. Florida is in the top quarter, but considering the age of its population, that’s just not a remarkable ranking for a virus that clearly wants to kill old people.

But the states being run by Democrats are suffering more Covid deaths: Mississippi is number 1 for Covid deaths per 100,000, followed by New Jersey, Louisiana, New York, and Massachusetts. Four of those five states are run by Democrat governors.

The first law of holes states: “If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.” Biden has discovered that he can now withhold critical Covid-19 therapy known as monoclonal antibodies from states run by Republicans. He’s digging deeper. He paid no attention to this therapy until governors like DeSantis started promoting them as a solid treatment for Covid.

The Biden Administration is now rationing the distribution of these treatments, taking away power from states, medical facilities, and doctors. Florida was capped at 27,850 doses of the monoclonal antibody treatment Regeneron, and another 3,100 doses of one made by Eli Lilly, this for a state with 21.5 million residents. Late last week, Providence Medical Center in Anchorage had only 400 doses on hand.

From federal mandates to rationing of medications, to his over-hyping the need for boosters, while the FDA went the other way on them for most Americans, President Biden has bungled and botched Operation Warp Speed, the rapid vaccination program put in place by former President Donald Trump.

Biden is punishing the workforce of America with his political calculation. Perhaps it’s time the American worker vote with his feet and demand that Boss Biden back down on his unconstitutional mandate against those who keep the country running, so that those who don’t work can keep collecting their checks.

Suzanne Downing is the publisher of Must Read Alaska and Must Read America. She writes for NewsMax.