CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Friday that, in effect, she'd rather use a carrot rather than a stick as a way to get city workers to obey her order requiring them to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by Oct. 15.
The mayor said that, throughout the pandemic, she has heard from workers throughout the city who said they were nervous and wanted a safe work place.
"With the vaccine, we can provide exactly what the workers ask for which is a safe workplace," Lightfoot said.
The mayor said offering regular COVID testing of city workers won't do the job of cutting the number of COVID cases and making workplaces safer.
"Testing is a point in time indicator of where you are. It is not a substitute for the vaccine. It just isn't. The only way that you can feel safe, not even feel safe, but be safe from the virus is to get vaccinated," Lightfoot said.
She points out that, 97 percent of the people who wind up in hospitals with COVID-19 are unvaccinated. The mayor said there are even first responders in hospitals and that the sickest are unvaccinated.
"This is an urgent crisis that we have to address. We have a tool that has been given to us that we know is proven. Ninety-nine percent of of the people who get vaccinated never get sick again," Lightfoot said.
Mayor Lightfoot said discussions with worker unions continue. The police union, the Fraternal Order of Police, has taken a strong stance against being forced to being vaccinated.
To that, the mayor said, "I understand there's a lot of concern. There's a lot of fear. We've got to continue to break through a lot of myths that are still out there about the virus, about the vaccine."
