Where are the data?

Members of the Fraternal Order of Police, along with supporters, rally outside of City Hall ahead of a City Council meeting today. (Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune)

I don’t expect to see many hands. So, I’m trying to figure out why Chicago cops are being ordered, at the cost of their jobs, to receive the Covid-19 vaccination.

Is it because they are super-spreaders who have infected vast swaths of Chicago, flooding Chicago hospitals and forcing the morgue to rent refrigerated trucks to hold all the dead?

Or is it because the cops are so vulnerable, that they must be protected from everyone else who might (or might not) have Covid or who are asymptomatic? And that the ranks of the cops have been decimated?

Where is the science, Ms. Mayor, that says cops as transmitters are so dangerous or vulnerable that they must be vaccinated? Is the risk that they pose to the common good or themselves so terrible that they must be fired if they don’t comply?

Consider this: Chicago police (and firemen) have been essential workers, having worked through the entire 18 or 19 months of the pandemic, many of them not having been vaccinated. Is there evidence that they or the city suffered so much that at this late date every single one must be vaccinated? To what end?

How many have already been infected and carry the strong antibodies that protects them against the disease? I bet you can’t answer that, Ms. Mayor. Did you bother to collect data–and make it public–on how many are seeking a religious exemption? Or who object on medical grounds because they fear that an additional shot beyond the two they already have received might pose a health risk, as some data show?

Unable to answer factually or honestly to any of these questions, one can only assume that your motives for a mandatory vaccination are, well, cloudy, if not malevolent.

Ms. Mayor, your city’s racked with violence, most notably in the minority communities. Michigan Ave. and other stores are routinely sacked by organized thugs who merely walk in, empty the racks and get out unimpeded. You need every police officer you can find. Instead, you’re getting rid of some.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis plans to offer a $5,000 signing bonus to any officer willing to take a job there. But perhaps even more important, transferring officers would be going to a state where they are deeply respected. Unlike in Chicago where they are being used in a idiotic and destructive political game.

Related: Paul Vallas in a Tribune op-ed: “Lightfoot should stop the dangerous rhetoric and reason with the FOP.”

Type your email address in the box and click the “create subscription” button. My list is completely spam free, and you can opt out at any time.