“People aren’t thinking about us”: How new ban on COVID-19 vaccine mandates impacts medically-vulnerable Texans

Alice Barton looks through a rack of homemade masks in her South Austin home on Nov. 10, 2023. A bill signed on Friday, which bans vaccine requirements on all private businesses, could risk the health of groups like organ transplant recipients, cancer patients and those with underlying conditions as common as severe asthma (Credit: Julius Shieh/The Texas Tribune)

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A sweeping ban on COVID-19 vaccine requirements for all private businesses, including hospitals, is the latest blow to medically vulnerable Texans who rely on others’ immunization to shield themselves from highly transmissible viruses.