Coercion Works!

npr |  In the quest to get more Americans vaccinated, one thing is becoming increasingly clear: Vaccine mandates work.

Nowhere is that more apparent than at United Airlines. On Aug. 6, United became the first U.S. airline to tell its workers to get vaccinated against COVID-19 if they wanted to keep their jobs.

The company says 99.5% of United employees have been vaccinated, not counting the roughly 2,000 who have applied for religious or medical exemptions. Elsewhere, other employers also report success with mandates. Tyson Foods, New York City schools, major hospital systems in Maine and the NBA are among those with vaccination rates topping 90%.

Taking the shot isn't an easy decision for many people. One of them was Margaret Applegate, a San Francisco-based customer service agent with United for 29 years. She was proud of how United had handled the pandemic up until then — the lengths the airline had gone to for keeping workers and customers safe, even partnering with Clorox on cleaning and disinfecting.

Now she no longer felt so proud.

Applegate, who is 57, had not gotten vaccinated. Like many people, she was scared. She'd heard from friends in the U.S. and abroad about bad reactions to the shots, and she worried that the vaccine could exacerbate her heart condition.

She was also uneasy about how quickly the COVID-19 vaccines had been developed and authorized for use.

"I thought that was a little bit too rushed. It just felt too rushed," she says.

Still, she wrestled with what to do. She was troubled by the death of a co-worker from COVID-19 and the diminished health of another co-worker who had been hospitalized with the virus and survived. She recognized the vaccine mandate as her company's final push to keep employees safe.