Significant majorities of registered voters in Boston support employers mandating COVID-19 vaccines among their workforces and the Baker administration's new mask requirement in K-12 schools, according to a new survey.
About 87% of Boston voters likely to cast ballots in the Sept. 14 preliminary election agree with Education Commissioner Jeff Riley's policy requiring anyone over the age of 5 to wear a mask in K-12 public schools, regardless of vaccination status, through at least the start of October, a Boston Globe/Suffolk University poll published Tuesday found.
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With schools across the state preparing to embark on their third straight academic year impacted by the pandemic, less than 9% of Boston voters surveyed disagreed with the school mask mandate. Another 3.6% were undecided.
The poll of 500 likely voters in Boston, conducted from Sept. 2 to Sept. 4 with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points, also found substantial support for vaccine mandates on workers. About 71% of those polled "believe employers should require that their employees get vaccinated" compared to nearly 19% who oppose the policy. Eighty-three percent voiced support for Mayor Kim Janey's decision requiring city workers to provide proof of vaccination or submit to weekly testing, and 13% opposed her order.
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Gov. Charlie Baker, Attorney General Maura Healey, and other constitutional officers have rolled out varying degrees of vaccine mandates on their public-sector employees in recent weeks, as have many private employers, while the delta variant fuels an increase in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations.
