Vaccinations: No more carrot—bring out the stick Scott Gilmore: Rewards and bribes aren't working. It’s increasingly clear there’s only one way out of this pandemic and the approaching fourth wave. https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/vaccinations-no-more-carrot-bring-out-the-stick/
Just as comical... There's large vaccination hesitancy among those that shoot up with drugs. They are the population that are at an increased risk of poor health, social and economic outcomes related to COVID-19 and associated restrictions. Factors that might increase risk include comorbid medical conditions, social and economic disadvantage, homelessness and housing instability, criminalisation/justice involvement and barriers to accessing health services, along with health risks from behaviours such as smoking that are known to affect disease severity from Covid. Yet, the more I think about it...maybe I'm wrong because drug users immune systems are typically weakened or damage. Thus, those that want to get vaccinated should be given free blood chemistry tests with Covid tests to ensure they're suitable for vaccination. wrbtrader
UNC faculty to push for mandatory vaccination policy for students, staff https://www.wral.com/coronavirus/un...ccination-policy-for-students-staff/19809164/
Quitting a Job Due to Vaccine Requirements? You Won't Be Eligible for Unemployment https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/per...ements-you-wont-be-eligible-for-unemployment/ As more companies mandate vaccines, it's important that employees understand the implications of not getting one. At this point, many people have been working remotely for a solid year and a half. But many companies are getting tired of that arrangement and are eager to bring workers back to the office in some capacity. Unfortunately, the Delta variant is throwing a wrench in the works. With COVID-19 cases soaring once again, employers need to take steps to protect their employees if they're going to require them to show up to an actual workplace. And to that end, many are requiring that employees get a COVID-19 vaccine before coming back to work. At first glance, that may seem like an infringement on individual rights. But actually, companies do have the right to mandate vaccines. And if you refuse to get one and are decide to quit your job or are terminated because of that, you may be in for a financial shock, because you won't be eligible for unemployment benefits. Violating company policy means you're out of luck To qualify for unemployment benefits, you'll need to have lost your job through no fault of your own. If your company struggles financially and has to downsize its staff, for example, that's a valid reason for getting unemployment. On the other hand, if you're fired from your job for consistently showing up late, that's a scenario where you're likely to be denied unemployment benefits. Similarly, any time you violate a company policy, it's grounds for termination. And if your company's policy is to require COVID-19 vaccines, and you don't get one, then you could be terminated and ineligible to receive any unemployment money. The same holds true if you quit your job because you don't want to get vaccinated. With that said, companies that are requiring vaccines generally need to make exceptions for employees who can't get a jab for medical or religious reasons. In that situation, the burden will be on you to prove that you're exempt from your company's general policy. In that scenario, if you're terminated, you may have a right to unemployment benefits. You may also have a wrongful termination lawsuit on your hands. So in that case, speaking to an employment lawyer could be a good thing to do. Know the rules Unemployment benefits can be a financial lifeline when you lose your job, especially if you don't have any savings to fall back on. But if you refuse to get vaccinated and that violates your company's rules, you should be prepared for your unemployment claim to be denied. If your company is mandating vaccines and you really don't want to get one, but you also don't qualify for an exemption, then you might consider trying to negotiate a different arrangement with your employer. You may be given permission to work from home, if not permanently, then at least for the time being while the current outbreak is raging. Getting vaccinated is a sensitive issue and one that a lot of people feel strongly about. It pays to speak up for yourself if your company's vaccination policy doesn't align with your personal comfort level.
Fact check: Did George Washington mandate vaccines for his army? https://www.wral.com/fact-check-did-george-washington-mandate-vaccines-for-his-army/19807935/ President Joe Biden recently said he asked the Defense Department to explore "how and when they will add COVID-19 to the list of vaccinations our armed forces must get, drawing the criticism of people opposed to vaccine mandates. But those critics have their own detractors. "George Washington mandated smallpox vaccines for the Continental Army," reads the text of an image that’s being shared on social media with an illustration of the first president of the United States on horseback. "Could you imagine if his soldiers behaved like the GOP?" wrote one person who tweeted the image. But this is basically true. According to the Fred W. Smith National Library for Study of George Washington, Washington and his Continental Army "faced a threat that proved deadlier than the British" in the first years of the Revolutionary War — smallpox. Infrequent outbreaks and wariness of inoculation made his troops very susceptible to the disease," according to the library. "After heavy losses in Boston and Quebec, Washington implemented the first mass immunization policy in American history." Washington issued the order to have all troops inoculated on Feb. 5, 1777, in a letter to John Hancock, who was president of the Second Continental Congress. In another letter, Washington ordered all recruits arriving in Philadelphia be inoculated. "Finding the smallpox to be spreading much and fearing that no precaution can prevent it from running through the whole of our army, I have determined that troops shall be inoculated," he wrote. "This expedient may be attended with some inconveniences and some disadvantages, but yet I trust in its consequences will have the most happy effects. Necessity not only authorizes but seems to require the measure, for should the disorder infect the army in the natural way and rage with its virulence we should have more to dread from it than from the sword of the enemy." By the end of 1777, about 40,000 soldiers had been inoculated against the disease. Washington had initially ordered that no one in the army be inoculated, which was done by infecting them with a less-deadly form of smallpox, because he didn’t want to risk debilitating his men and leaving them vulnerable to a British attack while they recovered. The enemy, knowing it, will certainly take advantage of our situation," he wrote at the time. But inoculating recruits as soon as they enlisted meant they contracted the milder form of the disease at the same time they were being outfitted for war, and they would be healed by the time they left to join the army, according to the library. Washington, who had suffered from smallpox as a teenager, strongly believed in the effectiveness of inoculation and persuaded his wife to undergo the procedure in 1776 even as he forbade his troops from being inoculated, National Geographic reported. Back then, the inoculation process was called variolation, named after the virus that causes smallpox — the variola virus. It involved exposing people to the virus by scratching material from smallpox sores into their arms or having them inhale it, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Variolation was eventually replaced by vaccination after an English doctor named Edward Jenner noticed in 1796 that milkmaids who had gotten cowpox were immune to smallpox, according to the CDC. He guessed that exposure to cowpox could be used to protect people against smallpox and developed a vaccine. PolitiFact ruling The image claims, "George Washington mandated smallpox vaccines for the Continental Army." The shorthanded history is basically right. The smallpox vaccine didn’t exist when Washington was commander in chief of the Continental Army, but the point remains: he ordered the inoculation of troops against smallpox by the means that was then available, variolation. We rate this post Mostly True.
Obviously the top big law firms in the U.S. fully understand employment law as it relates to vaccine mandates. Let's see what they are doing... Vaccine Mandates Are Trending Across Biglaw Firms Shots in arms to keep lawyers and staff safe from Delta's harms https://abovethelaw.com/2021/08/vaccine-mandates-are-trending-across-biglaw-firms/ We keep saying that the times we’re living in now are “post-pandemic,” but that seems to be far from the truth. COVID-19 continues to rage on across the United States, and the Delta variant now accounts for about 93 percent of all coronavirus infections in the country. Biglaw firms are now getting serious about prevention and protection, and many are now mandating vaccines for all. Thus far, the firms that have made vaccination a requirement for those returning to the office include Akin Gump, Arent Fox, Clifford Chance, Cooley, Crowell & Moring, Davis Polk, Davis Wright Tremaine, Dickinson Wright, Fenwick & West, Fried Frank, Goodwin, Hanson Bridgett, Hogan Lovells, Hueston Hennigan, Lowenstein Sandler, McDermott Will & Emery, Mintz, Paul Weiss, Reed Smith, Ropes & Gray, Sanford Heisler, Schiff Hardin, and Weil Gotshal. Now, we can add another two firms to the list. Norton Rose Fullbright and Patterson Belknap have both added a vaccination mandate to their safety protocols. Patterson Belknap seems to have been ahead of the curve when it comes to vaccination requirements for its workforce, announcing that as of early last month (July 6, to be exact), everyone who entered the firm’s office “must be fully vaccinated subject to medical or religious accommodations under applicable law.” Norton Rose will be limiting U.S. office access to those “who are fully vaccinated.” Although the firm is sill planning to return to its office in September, it will be “continually monitoring the situation and evaluating this timeline.” NRF’s vaccine requirement is new as of this week, in response to “a dramatic increase in COVID-19 cases among unvaccinated individuals.” Will your firm be changing its plans when it comes to vaccination for attorneys and staff thanks to the Delta variant? Please let us know. The more information is out there, the more likely it is that firms will be able to establish a market standard for a return to the office. As soon as you find out about the reopening plan at your firm, please email us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Office Reopening”) or text us at (646) 820-8477. We always keep our sources on stories anonymous. There’s no need to send a memo (if one exists) using your firm email account; your personal email account is fine. If a memo has been circulated, please be sure to include it as proof; we like to post complete memos as a service to our readers. You can take a photo of the memo and attach as a picture if you are worried about metadata in a PDF or Word file. Thanks.
Pentagon to mandate COVID-19 vaccination for active-duty force https://nypost.com/2021/08/04/pentagon-to-mandate-covid-vaccination-for-active-duty-force/
Visting the U.S. -- Your mandatory COVID vaccine. U.S. developing plan to require foreign visitors to be vaccinated https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...itors-to-be-vaccinated-official-idUSKBN2F52EV The Biden administration is developing a plan to require nearly all foreign visitors to the United States to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as part of eventually lifting travel restrictions that bar much of the world from entering the United States, a White House official told Reuters on Wednesday. The White House wants to re-open travel, which would boost business for the airlines and tourism industry, but is not ready to immediately lift restrictions because of the rising COVID-19 case load and highly transmissible COVID-19 Delta variant, the official said. The Biden administration has interagency working groups working “to have a new system ready for when we can reopen travel,” the official said, adding it includes “a phased approach that over time will mean, with limited exceptions, that foreign nationals traveling to the United States (from all countries) need to be fully vaccinated.” The extraordinary U.S. travel restrictions were first imposed on China in January 2020 to address the spread of COVID-19. Numerous other countries have been added, most recently India in May. The official’s comments were the strongest signal to date that the White House sees a path to unwinding those restrictions. Last month, Reuters reported that the White House was considering requiring foreign visitors to be vaccinated as part of discussions on how to relax travel restrictions. The official added the “working groups are developing a policy and planning process to be prepared for when the time is right to transition to this new system.” Some countries, including Canada and the United Kingdom, are relaxing or lifting restrictions for vaccinated Americans to travel. The White House has held discussions with airlines and others about how it would implement a policy of requiring vaccines for foreign visitors. The administration must also answer other questions including what proof it would accept of vaccination and if the United States would accept vaccines that some countries are using but which have not yet been authorized by U.S. regulators. The United States currently bars most non-U.S. citizens who within the last 14 days have been in the United Kingdom, the 26 Schengen nations in Europe without border controls, Ireland, China, India, South Africa, Iran and Brazil. The White House interagency talks previously had focused on requiring vaccines for nearly all foreign visitors arriving by air. The White House official did not immediately answer questions about whether the administration is developing plans to also require visitors arriving from Mexico and Canada to be vaccinated before crossing land borders. Currently, the only foreign travelers allowed to cross by land into the United States from Mexico and Canada are essential workers such as truck drivers or nurses. It was not clear how long the administration will maintain existing restrictions but the official reiterated that infections “appear likely to continue to increase in the weeks ahead” and that “the United States will maintain existing travel restrictions at this point.”
Nursing home operator tells workers to get vaccine or lose their jobs https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health...lls-workers-to-get-vaccine-or-lose-their-jobs