Individuals who successfully receive a religious exemption to COVID-19 rules may find their names on “tracking lists” for 20 different federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security.
The DHS is only the latest agency added to a growing list, according to The Daily Signal, which now includes the Department of Justice, Department of the Treasury, Department of Transportation, and Department of Health and Human Services.
Each of these federal agencies will have the ability to track individuals who are religiously exempt from COVID-19 vaccine requirements, though the DHS’s public comment period for the rule change ends on May 2.
“The rules are different, and vary among agencies. Generally, the agencies plan to collect religious affiliation,” reported The Daily Signal. “The notices also generally don’t explain if it will store the data, why agencies need to share the data, or why it’s needed beyond the decision to grant or deny an employee’s religious accommodation request.”
Religious exemptions to vaccines have been a hot topic, with those on the political left seeming to frame them as a problem for public health, and one speaker at the Council on Foreign Relations, who suggested current calls for religious exemptions to vaccines stem from the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and “celebrities” who promote vaccine skepticism.
In February of this year, Politico reported that a “health workers’ vaccine mandate” was “undone by religious exemptions.”
The instance took place at Clark Fork Valley Hospital in Montana when the Biden White House’s vaccine mandate for healthcare workers took effect and “roughly one-third of the hospital’s workers were unvaccinated” and the hospital “granted almost all of them religious exemptions after they filled out a one page form.”
Many hospitals have expressed concerns that they would face extreme staff shortages that may cost lives if they lost unvaccinated employees.
Meanwhile, those who are vaccinated may soon be eligible for another booster shot, bringing the total number of jabs for an otherwise healthy person up to four.
Both Pfizer and Moderna hope to receive emergency authorization for a new blend of the COVID-19 vaccine in time for the upcoming cold and flu season, and the Biden administration has already asked for more money to pay for the next round of jabs.
At the same time, NIAID Director Anthony Fauci has warned Americans to brace for a new wave of COVID-19 restrictions later this year, and the FDA recently authorized a fifth jab for immunocompromised individuals.
