No thunderstorm and a different laptop. Let's see if I can hold a connection long enough to finish a post this morning. I'm working early voting again this afternoon and would rather not come home to making dinner and trying to write something.
Employment and vaccine mandates top the news in so many ways today. Novant Health, a North Carolina hospital system, fired 175 employees who failed to comply with a mandatory vaccine policy. Of the 375 unvaccinated employees who were suspended and given five days in which to comply, 200 got a first dose of vaccine and kept their jobs. The company says that overall compliance is 99 percent. Employees given medical or religious exemptions must wear an N95 mask and other personal protective equipment while at work.
United Airlines is also dealing with unvaccinated employees, today starting the termination process for 593 US-based employees who chose not to be vaccinated. Excluding those requesting exemptions, the company reports 99 percent compliance among US-based employees. Vaccination is now a condition of employment for all new hires.
In a survey of 272 legal, compliance, and HR executives at companies across the US, those at 15 percent of the companies said that they would fire unvaccinated employees. However, 69 percent of the firms fear increased turnover after introducing vaccine mandates. Looking at job postings per million on the Indeed website, the number of jobs requiring vaccination rose 242 percent in one month. Two percent of personal care and home health positions now require vaccination as do 1.5 percent of child care jobs. In Arizona, 1.3 percent of positions require vaccination, the most of any state.
A study of 270,000 people recovering from covid in the US showed 37 percent having at least one symptom of long covid three to six months later. The most common symptom was anxiety or depression, reported by 15 percent of the patients. Symptoms linked to long covid were 50 percent more common among covid patients than flu patients. Separate research found that 12.3 percent of secondary school students and 35.7 percent of school staff who had covid in England had ongoing symptoms. Students most often reported weakness or fatigue while staff most often reported shortness of breath. Coronavirus ... the gift that keeps on giving.
Diabetes is an underlying condition that puts people at increased risk should they catch covid. It is beginning to appear, though, that covid can lead some previously healthy people to develop diabetes by infecting insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. Again, the gift that keeps on giving, though it would be more accurate to say that it keeps on taking.
Finally, Pfizer has given child data to the FDA for initial review but has yet to submit a request for Emergency Use Authorization for children ages five to 11. I can think of a lot of parents who were hoping to have their children five to 11 vaccinated by now; this is not going to improve their outlooks. Were I to have children that young, I would not be happy with the news.
No comments:
Post a Comment