A flashpoint in the argument over mandating a vaccine is forcing thousands of defiant law enforcement officers across the country off the streets.

While governors and mayors across the nation are dealing with the fallout from those being forced to leave the force, there has not been the same rancor locally yet.

Pennsylvania State Police staff is not under any mandate. Corrections officers are part of the Wolf administration’s order to vaccinate or face weekly tests, something they’re suing over.

No local police department we’re aware of is mandating vaccinations either.

But pressure could be brewing from the federal government.

President Joe Biden, when asked about the topic during a recent CNN town hall, agreed that police officers and emergency responders should be mandated to get vaccines and if they don’t comply they stay at home or be let go?"

“One (thing that concerns me) are those who just try to make this a political issue,” Biden said. “Freedom-- 'I have the freedom to kill you with my COVID.' Come on!”

Last week, Pennsylvania State Police Tpr. Dung Martinez died from what local media in Philadelphia reports was Covid-19 complications.

In fact, Covid-19 is the leading cause of deaths among law enforcement officers nationally. The Officer Down Memorial Page reports 485 officers have died from Covid-19 in 2020 and 2021, two of them locally from the Cambria County Sheriff’s Office, compared to 95 deaths by gunfire in that same period.

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