Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said Thursday it was “absolutely the government’s business” to know which Americans have or haven’t been vaccinated against COVID-19.
Appearing on CNN, Becerra was responding to GOP criticisms of the Biden administration’s planned “door-to-door” campaign to “educate” unvaccinated Americans on the importance of getting inoculated and how safe and accessible vaccines are. He began his response by saying the government has had to “spend trillions of dollars to try to keep Americans alive during this pandemic” — suggesting that spending taxpayers’ money somehow gives the government the right to poke its nose into taxpayers’ health choices.
“So it is absolutely the government’s business, it is taxpayers’ business, if we have to continue to spend money to try to keep people from contracting COVID and helping reopen the economy,” he said, seemingly equating the interests of the government that he represents and of people who pay taxes.
The secretary also noted that “knocking on a door has never been against the law” and that Americans “don’t have to answer. But we hope you do.” (See video below.)
Becerra’s explanation, however, raised even more red flags as he argued that the administration wants to give Americans “the sense that they have the freedom to choose.”
The secretary went on to state that the government tries to “give people as much freedom and choice as possible” — as if freedom derives from government, which can then decide how much or little freedom we are allowed to have. “Clearly, when over 600,000 Americans have died, the best choice is to get vaccinated,” he concluded, implying that the government knows best.
Becerra’s comments sparked a new wave of criticism.
Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) referred to the secretary as “Big Brother Becerra.” “What happened to health privacy and personal freedom? Too much liberty has been lost in the state of fear government and media created over Covid,” Johnson tweeted. “People should be free to choose or refuse Covid vaccination without pressure or fear of reprisal.”
Representative Dan Bishop (R-N.C.) described the administration’s strategy in another tweet, writing that “Becerra and Biden have you on a list and are going door-to-door.” Bishop added, “That is absurd, even by Dem COVID power trip standards.”
Becerra then was forced to walk back his remarks, and stated his words were “being taken widely out of context.” “To be clear: government has no database tracking who is vaccinated,” Becerra posted on Twitter. “We’re encouraging people to step up to protect themselves, others by getting vaccinated. It’s the best way to save lives and end this pandemic.”
In April, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki assured, amid privacy concerns, that there “will be no federal vaccinations database” or any mandated vaccine credentials. She repeated the statement in May.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that “unfortunately,” there is no national organization that maintains vaccination records.
Despite the White House’s repeated denials of government support for a centralized vaccination database, “vaccine passports” or any such certifications, these statements may be highly deceiving — simply put, a lie.
The Washington Post reported on May 28 that the Biden administration and private companies are working hard to develop a standard way of handling credentials that would “allow Americans to prove they have been vaccinated against COVID-19,” and, accordingly, develop solutions to store and manage the data.
According to the Post, such efforts are the administration’s initiative, and have been driven largely by arms of the HHS — the mammoth department headed by none other than Xavier Becerra.
It is reported that there are at least 17 passport initiatives underway, one of which is a Vaccination Credential Initiative, which is a coalition endeavoring to standardize how data in vaccination records is tracked.
U.S. officials told the Post that they were dealing with an array of challenges, including data privacy. They said they wanted “to make sure all Americans will be able to get credentials that prove they have been vaccinated, but also want to set up systems that are not easily hacked.”
All of the programs are “rapidly moving forward,” per the outlet, “even as the White House deliberates about how best to track the shots and avoid the perception of a government mandate to be vaccinated.”
If anyone knows about the planned systems and their fast-pace development, it should be Becerra, who claims that the government “has no database tracking who is vaccinated” (perhaps a true statement for the moment), while also claiming that the government “absolutely” has a right to know.
