San Francisco has issued a vaccine mandate for city employees who work in jails and other areas that put employees with excessive public contact. The mandate requires those city employees to be vaccinated by September 15 or risk losing their jobs.

However, not everyone is on board with forced vaccinations. The San Francisco Deputy Sheriff’s Association has indicated they expect a large number of deputies to quit or take early retirement if they are forced to take a COVID vaccine. In a statement on its Facebook page on Friday, the group said that while they’ve “always promoted COVID safety,” they reject the mandate to be vaccinated or fired. The post said 160-700 deputy sheriffs so far have rejected vaccination in favor of masks and weekly testing, and that many of them choose not to be vaccinated for religious reasons.

The problem we are faced with now is the strict San Francisco Mandate which is vaccinate or be terminated. If deputy sheriffs are forced to vaccinate a percentage of them will retire early or seek employment elsewhere.

The post went on to point out that in this era of “Defund the Police,” San Francisco law enforcement can’t “afford to lose any more” employees.

San Francisco cannot afford to lose any more deputy sheriffs or any first responders. If they retire early or quit this will affect public safety even more. We would like San Francisco to be in alignment with the state guidelines which require vaccination or test weekly.

If deputies are willing to take the health risks of remaining unvaccinated, yet still comply with state law, it seems like a reasonable compromise. Unfortunately, reason is in short supply among the powers that be these days.