Category Archives: Coronavirus

Federal appeals court halts Biden administration’s vaccine requirement

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A federal appeals court in New Orleans has halted the Biden administration’s vaccine or testing requirement for private businesses, delivering another political setback to one of the White House’s signature public health policies.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, helmed by one judge who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan and two others who were appointed by President Donald Trump, issued the ruling Friday, after temporarily halting the mandate last weekend in response to lawsuits filed by Republican-aligned businesses and legal groups.

Calling the requirement a “mandate,” the court said the rule, instituted through the Labor Department, “grossly exceeds OSHA’s statutory authority,” according to the opinion, written by Judge Kurt D. Engelhardt and joined by Judges Edith H. Jones and Stuart Kyle Duncan.

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Biden administration unveils details of vaccine mandate covering 84 million workers

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On Thursday, senior Biden administration officials announced details of a highly anticipated mandate requiring U.S. employers with 100 or more workers to ensure employees are either fully vaccinated for COVID-19 or tested each week for the virus.

The officials also unveiled details of a separate mandate that will require employers participating in Medicare or Medicaid to have a fully vaccinated workforce, with no testing alternative.

The first rule covers 84 million U.S. workers, or two-thirds of the U.S. workforce, officials said. That rule, which will be administered by the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration, will require employees to be fully vaccinated by Jan. 4.

Employees who aren’t fully vaccinated by Jan. 4 have to produce a verified negative test to their employers every week and begin wearing a mask at work as of Dec. 5. Workers who test positive for COVID-19 or receive a diagnosis from a licensed health care provider have to be removed from the workplace. The rule doesn’t require employers to pay for the tests, though agreements with unions might require employers to cover the bill.

Starting Dec. 5, the OSHA rule will require covered employers to provide workers with paid time time off to receive vaccinations, as well as sick leave to recover from vaccination side effects that preclude working.

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Evidence why you would NEVER get a fountain drink at a gas station convenience Store

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The photos below are from an ice machine mounted atop a fountain drink dispenser at a very large national chain of gas station/convenience stores in Orlando. It’s funny how the name of the national chain gas station used to describe its hours of operation. After Covid-19 hit, restaurants and bars cut back their maintenance budgets and ice machine cleanings were one of the first to go. The basic theory behind what you are looking at is the following premise…. mold grows in a cold, wet and dark environment. It is essential to keep the plates of the evaporator very clean because this is the surface that produces cubes of ice.

The photo below is where the filtered (supposedly) water cascades over the evapoartor and freezes onto a metal plate that forms the cubes.

Here is a close up shot of the sections that make the cubes.

For comparison, here is an ice machine from a national chain of restaurants and bars. This demonstrates the difference in decision making at a corporate level to end maintenance programs due to finances.

Antibody treatment’s use soars

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Vaxxed and holdouts embrace therapy; experts debate use of therapy by vaccinated

A nurse enters a monoclonal antibody site, Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2021, at C.B. Smith Park in Pembroke Pines. Numerous sites are open around the state offering monoclonal antibody treatment sold by Regeneron to people who have tested positive for COVID-19.

Vaxxed and holdouts embrace therapy; experts debate use of therapy by vaccinated

It isn’t just people who are unvaccinated using Florida’s 25 monoclonal antibody treatment clinics, according to Florida officials.

About 45% of the more than 135,000 people who have received the COVID-19 treatment were fully vaccinated, state officials estimate. In parts of the state with higher vaccination rates, such as MiamiDade County, the percentage has been as much as 60%.

But do vaccinated people with breakthrough cases and mild symptoms need to get monoclonal antibody treatment? The question of who should be prioritized is drawing debate in the medical community. The pricey drug cocktail is free to patients but costs taxpayers about $2,100 a dose.

Patients should talk with their doctor, but people who are fully vaccinated and otherwise healthy don’t benefit much from getting the treatment if they develop a breakthrough case of COVID-19, said Michael Teng a virologist at the University of South Florida.

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State reports 2,124 new cases, adds 887 to total death toll

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Florida reported 2,124 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday and increased its total death count by 887, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

The new deaths came over the past couple of weeks because deaths are counted on the day they occur, not the day they are reported. It can take two weeks or more for a death to be reflected in the data and state has been releasing the death counts twice a week.

The average for new cases is down to 3,052 as of Tuesday and the average for deaths based on the date reported was 240. There have been 3,611,767 confirmed cases of COVID in the state and at least 57,300 Floridians have died since the start of the pandemic.

Hospitalizations have been dropping since they peaked in mid-August. As of Tuesday, 3,307 patients were in Florida hospitals with COVID-19, a 27.5% decline from the previous week and the fewest patients since mid-July.

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United Airlines Prepares to Fire Employees Who Refuse Covid-19 Vaccinations

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Carrier estimates 593 workers didn’t get the shots Sept. 27 deadline

United Airlines Holdings Inc. is moving ahead with plans to terminate close to 600 employees who didn’t meet its Covid-19 vaccination deadline, company officials said Tuesday.

United in August said it would require all of its 67,000 U.S. employees to be vaccinated—the first major U.S. airline and one of the first large U.S. companies to do so.

Now the Sept. 27 deadline has passed, and while most of the airline’s employees complied, United is starting the process of firing 593 employees who didn’t get the shots, company officials said. Those workers can still save their jobs if they opt to get vaccinated in the coming days before their official termination meetings, airline officials said Tuesday.

“We know for some, that decision was a reluctant one,” United Chief Executive Scott Kirby and President Brett Hart wrote in a letter to employees Tuesday. “But there’s no doubt in our minds that some of you will have avoided a future hospital stay—or even death—because you got vaccinated.”

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Pandemic Mask Rules Are Making Even Less Sense

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San Francisco Mayor London Breed sent an important but unintentional message last week when she was caught violating her own mask mandates while partying away, maskless, in a jam-packed jazz club.

Her excuse was incoherent; she said she was “feeling the spirit,” enjoying the music and so not thinking about a mask.

But the more serious problem wasn’t her hypocrisy and lame rationalizing so much as the mixed and misleading messages sent by the rules themselves. Americans are in dire need of guidance that’s coherent, fair, sustainable and backed by evidence. And they’re not getting it from public health authorities or the rule-makers who rely on them, even as the country slouches toward a confusing new normal with no end to Covid-19 in sight.

“We don’t need the fun police to come in and micromanage and tell us what we should or shouldn’t be doing,” Breed said when questioned. She was making a good point! But as Charles C.W. Cook wrote on Monday in National Review, she is the person who authorized the mask mandate. She is the fun police.

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