TRENTON, N.J. – Presumptive GOP gubernatorial nominee Jack Ciattarelli spelled out his position on COVID-19 vaccine public policy on Wednesday, including his take on mandatory vaccinations and vaccine passports.
Ciattarelli’s full statement is posted below:
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“As soon as I’m eligible, I plan to be vaccinated and believe others should too. Enacting a blanket mandate, however, especially for young people, is not something I support. As I travel the state, complaints from our elderly population and their loved ones are both constant and infuriating.
Under no circumstances should we be creating a situation where those who are most at-risk are literally competing with healthy young people for a vaccine.
That is why Governor Murphy should discourage our public and private colleges and universities from mandating vaccinations for all students. At the very least, he should do so until such time as the state can guarantee that every single New Jerseyan in higher-risk categories has immediate access to a vaccine should they choose to get one.
Governor Murphy needs to pledge today that he will not support or otherwise encourage mandatory vaccinations for K-12 students as a condition of their return to in-person learning either this spring or next September.
Lastly, the idea that Americans would be forced to carry around a personal health record – or worse have it loaded onto their smartphone – to attend a ballgame, see a concert, or go out to dinner is simply wrong.
Governor Murphy is wrong for even having considered it. ‘Vaccine passports’ violate medical privacy and state government should not dictate who you can see and where you can go based on having one.”
