A witty introduction to my first topic escaped me, possibly because there is nothing witty about the content. Republicans in Florida are thinking about getting rid of vaccine mandates for measles and mumps. If there's no vaccine mandate for covid in their state, why should there be any other vaccine mandates? What's next? Polio? We should be thankful that smallpox has been eradicated, because that might have been on their list as well.
A federal appeals judge has temporarily blocked New York City Schools from enforcing a vaccine mandate for teachers and other workers. The case has been referred to a three-judge panel on an expedited basis; there may be a ruling later this week. The mandate has no option of submitting negative test results. A similar statewide mandate goes into effect for hospital and nursing home workers tomorrow. The governor plans to use National Guard members and out-of-state workers to cover staff shortages if too many health care workers fail to meet tomorrow's deadline. Meanwhile, two federal judges in Tennessee have ruled in separate cases that local schools may require masks. This makes three times in two weeks that a judge has so ruled.
Norway is lifting covid restrictions that have been in place since a day before I began keeping this daily pandemic blog. Says the prime minister, "It is 561 days since we introduced the toughest measures in Norway in peacetime. Now the time has come to return to a normal daily life." Coming to an end are social distancing and capacity limits on restaurants, businesses, and sports and cultural venues. Nightclubs may reopen as well. At the end of the month, the global advisory against nonessential travel will expire. Entry restrictions will remain for certain countries to be specified this week.
Remember the shortages some 560ish days ago? Costco is again putting limits on how much toilet paper, bottled water, and certain cleaning products one customer can buy. They cite the rise in demand related to the Delta variant and supply chain problems.
Here's an interesting one, or one the end of which will be interesting to see. A player for the Golden State Warriors National Basketball Association team requested a religious exemption from the NBA vaccine mandate. The NBA denied his request. The player says that he will only get vaccinated if he is forced to do so. Where it gets interesting is that he will not be able to attend any of his team's home games. That locale has no negative testing option; a person needs to be vaccinated to attend a sporting event. The NBA does allow unvaccinated players to play but they must be tested daily. I don't know if the team could force him to get vaccinated by doing something such as not paying him for home games in which he cannot play. I hope to find out how the situation works out. And in case you were wondering, no details were given on the basis of his request for a religious exemption.
1 comment:
We've had a shortage of heavy goods drivers (the really big trucks) since Brexit. It's been disrupting everything from refuse collection to distribution of the flu vaccine. It needed a crisis for something to be done, that turned out to be the panic buying of petrol this week. At least the panic buying of toilet rolls doesn't block the roads on the approach to the store.
Post a Comment