帕梅拉·米尔伍德并不反对接种疫苗。但是在她在佐治亚州杰苏普工作的联邦监狱，她的许多同事都持怀疑态度，或者完全反对打针。

她预测，结果将是，在这个假期，大约30%到40%的员工将外流，届时，监狱员工将接受一项全面的任务，要求全国200万文职人员接受全面免疫接种新冠肺炎(新型冠状病毒肺炎)。

这种大规模辞职在其他强制接种疫苗的雇主中并没有发生，比如泰森食品、联合航空以及纽约市的消防员和教师。美国军方也已经要求接种COVID疫苗。

在每种情况下，即使在一些喧闹的抗议之后，工作人员最终还是服从了，其中90%或更多的工人现在接种了疫苗。

伊芙琳·霍克斯坦/路透社，文件

乔·拜登总统在谈到冠状病毒后回答了记者的问题...

但米尔伍德说，她不太确定杰苏普监狱的情况会是这样，那里的工作条件特别紧张，尽管传播水平很高，但员工生活在一些COVID疫苗接种水平最低的州。

“我们有一些意志坚强的员工，他们会坚持自己的立场，”米尔伍德说，他也是萨凡纳以南约60英里的杰苏普的当地工会主席。“我们将因此失去一些员工。”

在最初认为疫苗授权是错误的做法后，乔·拜登总统今年夏天改变了立场。疫苗接种率比预期提前停止，COVID病例再次开始上升。太小而不能接种疫苗的儿童开始挤满儿科重症监护室，医院警告说，由于病床上挤满了大部分未接种疫苗的患者，可能不得不进行定量护理。

9月，拜登宣布了一项新计划:任何为联邦政府工作或与联邦政府有业务往来的人都必须接种疫苗，不能选择检测病毒。通过医疗补助和医疗保险等项目接受联邦资金的医疗机构的医护人员也需要注射疫苗。此外，拥有100名或100名以上员工的私营企业将不得不强制执行他们自己的任务，尽管这些工人将被给予每周测试的选择。

由于这两项独立的任务面临多重诉讼，拜登辩称，如果没有广泛的疫苗接种，办公场所和装配线就不安全，雇主有责任像保护工人免受石棉接触或任何其他职业危害一样保护工人免受新冠肺炎病毒的侵害。

拜登上个月在美国有线电视新闻网市政厅表示:“我一直等到7月才谈论授权，因为我尝试了所有其他可能的方式。“授权正在发挥作用。”

根据疾病控制和预防中心的数据，未接种疫苗的人是检测呈阳性的可能性是阳性的6倍，死亡的可能性是阳性的11倍。当接种疫苗的人检测呈阳性时，他们也倾向于更快地恢复和清除病毒，使他们的传染性降低，并保护他们周围的人。

研究还发现，“自然免疫”是不够的。一项针对7000名新冠肺炎住院患者的研究在9个州发现，以前感染过的未接种疫苗的人再次感染的可能性仍然是接种疫苗的人的5倍。

尽管如此，随着假日季节的临近和雇主抱怨工人短缺，拜登的授权现在处于关于政府是否走得太远的全国辩论的前沿。

根据拜登的计划，估计为联邦政府工作的200万平民——其中绝大多数居住在华盛顿特区以外——应该已经在11月22日的最后期限到来之前得到了最后一枪。疾控中心认为一个人在最后一次注射后两周“完全免疫”。

有多少联邦劳动力能在最后期限前完成还有待观察。尽管如此，白宫仍不愿公布估计数字，因为它坚称工人仍有时间报告他们的疫苗接种情况联邦机构指南表示纪律处分最早可能在本周开始。

尤其令人担忧的是对国家安全和执法至关重要的工作人员，包括机场的5万多名运输安全管理局员工，他们的任务是在感恩节期间对大约400万名航空旅客进行筛查。

截至上个月，大约40%的运输安全管理局工作人员仍未接种疫苗。白宫和美国运输安全管理局尚未更新这些数据，但确实表示感恩节旅行不应受到很大影响，因为潜在的终止不会立即发生。

如果工人拒绝接种疫苗，他们将接受最初的咨询，然后是警告，之后他们将被终止。

但目前还不清楚这需要多长时间。网上发布的联邦指导方针建议咨询工作限于五天，随后暂停14天，在此期间，工人将被要求主动注射疫苗。

白宫官员表示，各机构在如何执行这一任务方面拥有酌处权，他们坚称拜登11月22日的最后期限不是“悬崖”

“我认为，最重要的是，目的是让人们接种疫苗并得到保护，而不是惩罚他们，”白宫新冠肺炎问题协调员杰夫·齐恩斯在最近的新闻发布会上说。

与此同时，政府似乎在缓慢地执行这一命令，同时辩称接种疫苗是当务之急。

当被问及为什么不能按照工会官员的建议，将联邦工作人员的截止日期推迟到1月4日，以与私营部门保持一致时，管理和预算办公室的一名发言人表示:“绝大多数联邦工作人员希望知道他们在工作场所是安全的，因为他们的同事已经接种了疫苗。”

在杰苏普，米尔伍德说抗议和员工流失是不可避免的。她说，已经有两名同事离开了，这让本就紧张的员工更加疲惫。

米尔伍德承认，她的丈夫同意只有在面临命令时才接种疫苗。她说她仍然不确定她的同事。

“有很多人，”米尔伍德说，“他们绝对会等到最后一刻，或者只是说，‘你必须解雇我。’事情就是这样。"

Biden says mandates work. He's about to find out with his own civilian workforce.

Pamela Millwood isn't against getting vaccinated. But at the federal prison where she works in Jesup, Georgia, many of her coworkers are skeptical or downright opposed to getting a shot.

The result, she predicts, will be an exodus of some 30% to 40% of staff this holiday season, when prison employees will fall under a sweeping mandate that requires the nation's 2 million civilian workers to become fully immunized againstCOVID-19.

That type of mass resignation hasn't happened at other employers with mandatory vaccinations, such as Tysons Foods, United Airlines and New York City firefighters and teachers. The U.S. military, too, already has required COVID vaccines.

In each instance, personnel eventually complied, even after some raucous protests, with 90% or more of those workers now vaccinated.

But Millwood said she's not so sure that will be the case at the Jesup prison, where working conditions are particularly stressful and employees are living in a state with some of the lowest COVID vaccination levels despite high transmission levels.

"We've got some very strong-minded staff who are going to stand their ground on it," said Millwood, who also serves as the local union president in Jesup, some 60 miles south of Savannah. "And we're going to lose some staff over this."

After initially dismissing a vaccine mandate as the wrong approach, President Joe Biden this summer switched gears. Vaccination rates had stalled out earlier than anticipated, and COVID cases again began ticking upward. Children too young for the vaccine began crowding pediatric ICUs, and hospitals warned of potentially having to ration care as beds overflowed with mostly unvaccinated patients.

In September, Biden announced a new plan: Anyone working for or doing business with the federal government would have to get vaccinated, without the option of testing for the virus. Health care workers at facilities that accept federal money through programs like Medicaid and Medicare also would be required to get their shots. Additionally, private businesses with 100 or more employees would have to impose mandates of their own, although those workers would be given the option of weekly testing.

As the separate mandates face multiple lawsuits, Biden has argued that office spaces and assembly lines aren't safe without widespread vaccinations, and that it's up to employers to protect workers against COVID-19 the same as they would asbestos exposure or any other occupational hazard.

"I waited until July to talk about mandating because I tried everything else possible," Biden said last month at a CNN Town Hall. "The mandates are working."

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, unvaccinated people aresix times more likely to test positive and 11 times more likely to die. When vaccinated people test positive, they also tend to recover and clear the virus more quickly, making them less contagious and protecting those around them.

Research also has found that "natural immunity" isn't enough.One study of 7,000 people hospitalized for COVID-19across nine states found that unvaccinated people who had been previously infected still were five times more likely to be re-infected than those who were vaccinated.

Still, as the holiday season approaches and employers complain of a worker shortage, Biden's mandates are now at the forefront of a nationwide debate on whether the government is going too far.

Under Biden's plan, the estimated 2 million civilians who work for the federal government -- the vast majority of whom reside outside the Washington, D.C., area -- were supposed to have gotten their last shot by now in anticipation of a Nov. 22 deadline. The CDC considers a person "fully immunized" two weeks after their last dose.

How much of the federal workforce will meet that deadline remains to be seen. The White House won't release estimates yet because it insists workers still have time to report their vaccinations, even thoughguidance to the federal agencieshas said disciplinary action could begin as early as this week.

Of particular concern are workers essential to national security and law enforcement, including the more than 50,000 Transportation Security Administration employees at airports tasked with screening an estimated 4 million air travelers over Thanksgiving.

As of last month, some 40% TSA workers remained unvaccinated. The White House and TSA haven't updated those figures, but did say Thanksgiving travel shouldn't be greatly affected because potential terminations won't be immediate.

If workers refuse a vaccination, they would be subject to an initial counseling session, followed by a warning, after which they'd be subject to termination.

But it's unclear how long that could take. Federal guidelines posted online suggest counseling efforts are limited to five days, to be followed by a 14-day suspension during which workers would be required to initiate getting a shot.

White House officials said agencies are being given discretion on how to implement the mandate, and they're insisting Biden's Nov. 22 deadline isn't a "cliff."

"The purpose, I think, most importantly, is to get people vaccinated and protected, not to punish them," Jeff Zients, the White House coordinator on COVID-19, said at a recent press briefing.

At the same time, the administration appears to be slow-walking the mandate while simultaneously arguing that getting vaccinated is urgent.

When asked why the deadline for federal workers can't be moved to Jan. 4 to align with the private sector, as suggested by union officials, a spokesperson for the Office of Management and Budget said: "The vast majority of the federal workforce wants to know they're safe in the workplace because their coworkers are vaccinated."

In Jesup, Millwood said protests and employee attrition are inevitable. Two coworkers already have left, stretching thinner an already strained staff, she said.

Millwood acknowledged that her husband agreed to get vaccinated only when faced with the mandate. She said she's still not sure about her coworkers.

"There are a lot of people," Millwood said, "who are absolutely either going to wait to the last minute, or are just [saying], 'You're going to have to fire me.' And that's just the way it is."