Currently, about 52 percent of the department’s personnel are fully vaccinated, and about 2 percent are partially vaccinated. We want those rates to go much higher, but we also have to deal with reality: Six weeks after the rule took effect on Oct. 1, more than 3,000 sworn deputies and about 1,000 additional staff members are subject to termination because of the vaccine mandate.
That is a prescription for a public-safety disaster.
The threat of being fired did not force unvaccinated members of the department to get their shots, as the Board of Supervisors clearly assumed it would. Instead, we’ve seen a spike in early retirements: 102 more deputies filed for retirement between October 2020 and October 2021 than in the previous year, and much of that increase has come since the board announced its intentions in August. Another 238 sworn personnel have told us they intend to leave the department.
I assume that my refusal to enforce the mandate and start firing people is the only thing keeping many more from leaving. But deputies tell me that they would rather quit or retire than be publicly shamed by a liberal Board of Supervisors, along with its media cheerleaders, telling them what to put in their bodies. I expect a slow-motion exodus from the force in the coming weeks and months.
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