- Well, joining us now is Todd Zywicki,

George Mason UniversityFoundation, professor of law.

Todd, welcome back to Faith Nation.

We want to start off witha new poll from Axios

that shows strong majority of Americans,

including suburban voters,

support vaccine mandatesfor federal workers

and private companies.

Todd, your thoughts.

Are mandates the wayto overcome hesitancy?

- Mandates are certainly notthe way to overcome hesitancy.

Which is that compellingsomebody to do something

is not going to make themmore willing to do it.

And I think what we're seeing already

is a revolution coming about,

especially among those likeme who have natural immunity.

There's some reports now

that nurses who have naturalimmunity are quitting.

They're closing...

There was a report that said

that they're trying to reschedule births.

I've heard about cardiacunits being shut down.

People of natural immunityneed to be respected here

because of the risks thatthey're putting on us.

And this sort of draconian,just crushing people,

is not gonna overcome vaccine hesitancy.

You might force somepeople to give vaccines,

but that's not going to improvethis country's commitment

to coming together to fight this pandemic.

- Todd, you just mentionedthat you earned an exemption

because of your naturalimmunity from George Mason.

Your thoughts, does that exemption,

do you think it should applyto the broad vaccine mandates

that were announced by the White House?

- Of course it is.

This is a completely misdirected way

of addressing this problem.

We are a year and a halffrom this pandemic by now.

What we should be focusing onis people's level of immunity,

however acquired.

Whether it's by vaccineor by natural immunity.

And that's the way out of this.

It's not by vaccinating people

who don't need to be vaccinated, like me,

forcing people who havehealth risks to get vaccinated

just so that they cango to work or whatever,

leaving in the handsof individual employers

to determine whether or not

somebody has a legitimatemedical exemption.

It's just crazy.

It's crazy and itviolates the constitution.

Your right to bodily autonomyand your bodily integrity

is not a matter of majority vote,

and it's not a matter thatwe put up to suburban voters

to determine whether somebody has a right

to be free from ainvoluntary medical activity.

And I just think it's a terribleway to go about doing this.

We should be focusing on immunity

and that's our glide path

to get out of this in the long run.

Immunity, however acquired.

- Todd, I think a lotof people might wonder,

you know, you fought and wonyour case against George Mason.

People who might want to seek an exemption

or fight vaccine mandatesrequired by work,

might want to know,

have you experiencedany type of retaliation

or any type of backlash?

- I have not, not in the slightest.

And I have to say itpartly has to do with,

I have a remarkable group of colleagues,

I have remarkable groupof students where I teach.

I gave a talk on this last week

for our Student FederalistSociety Chapter,

and the room was packed,and the students loved it.

Which is, the science onthis is clear at this point.

And unless you're just some sort of,

have some superstitiousattachment to the vaccines,

the science is clear,

natural immunity is robust,it's durable, it's broad,

it protects against variants.

And we all know the Israel study now

that finds that natural immunityis 27 times more protective

than vaccines againstsymptomatic infection,

and eight times more protectiveagainst hospitalization.

It's really no contest at this point.

And the idea that we're gonnacontinue down this one path

of vaccination andignore natural immunity,

my students and my colleagues are at least

are too smart for that.

And I wish that somebodydowntown in the White House

would wake up to that fact as well.

- Todd, we only have a fewseconds left, literally.

Any suggestions on how health officials

can help overcome hesitancy or skepticism?

- Yeah.

They should stop forcingpeople to do these things,

and they should recognizenatural immunity.

It's anti-scientific and it's harmful,

and it's causing a lot ofharm to a lot of people

by forcing them to get vaccinated.

- We'll have to end it there.

And thank you for ending on time.

Todd Zywicki with George Mason University.

Thank you so much for being with us today.