An estimated 84 million U.S. workers may be required to be vaccinated against COVID-19 or get tested on a weekly basis, thanks to a new rule announced last week by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

Here in North Carolina, the mandate will apply to employers with 100 or more employees, and, notably, public school districts. Republicans aren’t happy about it — including Superintendent of Public Instruction Catherine Truitt.

In a statement last week, Truitt called the new standard “one of the clearest examples of government overreach and one of the purest attacks on personal choice.”

“I’ve always maintained these decisions are best made by an individual, or parents, and in tandem with a trusted health care provider,” the statement said.

“Personal choice” and “government overreach” are standard talking points for many conservative politicians who oppose vaccine mandates. But Truitt’s opposition is especially concerning, given that she’s responsible for North Carolina’s public school system and the roughly 1.5 million students and educators that are a part of it. That school system already requires its students to be immunized against a number of diseases, including measles, polio and Hepatitis B, under state law. To our knowledge, Truitt hasn’t spoken out against mandatory vaccines in schools before. Our question was: what makes this one different?

“The concern here is that these are decisions being made on a federal level as a ‘top down’ approach. This comes across as a federal power grab meant to usurp the authority of states to set health policies,” NCDPI communications director Blair Rhoades said in an email.

It’s also different because state law requires vaccinations for students, while the new OSHA standard will apply to adults, Rhoades said. But when we asked whether Truitt would be more receptive to a state-imposed vaccine mandate for employees, or one that applies to students, we didn’t get a different answer.

“The crux of this conversation really comes down to choice and she clearly states who she thinks the choice belongs to in her original statement,” Rhoades wrote. “I think you’re seeing across the board that the primary concern is that there is no personal choice when the government is requiring something.”

But it’s not just a personal choice when the consequences of that choice can be passed along to others. And COVID isn’t just a public health threat. It’s a workplace hazard, too, and the federal government has a long track record of regulating workplace health and safety. Even the least worker-friendly states have at least some measures in place to protect workers from getting sick or injured while on the job. For example, OSHA standards require workplaces to provide appropriate safety equipment and limit exposure to hazardous substances. Furthermore, public school teachers are required to be tested for tuberculosis as a condition of employment in North Carolina. Does Truitt consider that to be government overreach? ‘Like NASCAR on the road’ Extreme speeding increasingly brings death to NC highways READ MORE

Truitt did say in her original statement that she encourages North Carolinians to get vaccinated, and that vaccination is the best way to keep students in the classroom. We agree — but encouragement isn’t going to be our ticket out of this pandemic. So far, personal choice has only managed to get 56% of North Carolina’s total population fully vaccinated, and it’s not making our classrooms and workplaces any safer.

Truitt appears to be trying to stay loyal to the students and teachers she was elected to serve without straying from the party that helped her get there. But that’s a tough line to straddle, and her concerns about government mandates seem inconsistent. Truitt should decide which side she wants to be on, and keep her politics out of the classroom.