All things CoronaVirus

[MDlaxfan76]

So, unvaccinated people got infected, big spike...vaccines plus masks reduced, mask mandate lifted and there was another spike...now mask mandates being put on again after spike began...do I have that right?

I wondered how New Mexico was doing generally.
21st worst in US compared to Florida 8th, but worse than national average.
Who knows, they may catch up to Florida with this next spike.
They still have 37% of their pop not yet vaccinated, so still plenty of dry tinder.

[kramerica.inc]

Our company bumped everyone back to Jan 4th.

Found this tidbit in Newsweek today:

Constitutional accountability is coming for the Biden administration's COVID-19 "emergency temporary standard" (ETS)—better known as Biden's vaccine mandate. The rule, which would require businesses with more than 100 employees to enforce vaccination or weekly testing starting January 4, has run into a maelstrom of legal and political opposition.

Since the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) published the final ETS last Friday, at least 27 states and countless private plaintiffs from around the country filed lawsuits. If history is any guide, OSHA now faces an uphill climb to defend the rule. The agency is relying on the "emergency" authority that allows it to bypass normal procedural safeguards, but that courts have reviewed with a jaundiced eye. Of OSHA's nine previous uses of this authority, six were challenged in court and only one was fully upheld.

[MDlaxfan76]

Our company bumped everyone back to Jan 4th.

Found this tidbit in Newsweek today:

Constitutional accountability is coming for the Biden administration's COVID-19 "emergency temporary standard" (ETS)—better known as Biden's vaccine mandate. The rule, which would require businesses with more than 100 employees to enforce vaccination or weekly testing starting January 4, has run into a maelstrom of legal and political opposition.

Since the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) published the final ETS last Friday, at least 27 states and countless private plaintiffs from around the country filed lawsuits. If history is any guide, OSHA now faces an uphill climb to defend the rule. The agency is relying on the "emergency" authority that allows it to bypass normal procedural safeguards, but that courts have reviewed with a jaundiced eye. Of OSHA's nine previous uses of this authority, six were challenged in court and only one was fully upheld.

Certainly reasonable, what's the count up to now at your company Kram?...we're at 100% and have been since May. Boosters are on the docket next.

OSHA is required to take action if it sees serious risk to workers, but that doesn't mean they have much capacity to actually enforce the rules.

For instance, it's not as if OSHA can check every site where a hard hat is required to see if they're compliant. But what it does do is create a situation in which a whistle blower can bring OSHA in, or more relevantly can show that the employer wasn't following OSHA guidelines and injury resulted from that non-compliance. Liability.

And for those employers which actually want to comply, it provides a cover umbrella for insistence upon workers following OSHA rules.

But if a business does a fairly reasonable job of getting their people to get vaccinated or get tested and someone slips through a bit, not going to find OSHA swooping in to nail them. But there's some real liability if the employer decides to not require employees to do either, or even more flagrantly declares this non-compliance. And then someone dies...hoo boy, I don't want to be that employer.

Where I think the rule is weak, and may be best challenged legally, is that there's inadequate differentiation between work environments. A meat packing plant, for instance, is a way different environment than climbing a telephone pole. The cut-off at 100 employees, while intended to cut some slack on smaller employers, doesn't address the situation in which an employer has 50 workers congregated tightly in a poorly ventilated building...versus a larger company that does outdoors landscaping.

Here's the thing. It would be best for public health (and taxpayer expense) if everyone got vaccinated unless they had a very real medical issue that obviated against vaccination. And for those who have high exposure situations, it would be best if they were tested frequently as they could well be carriers, whether vaccinated or not. And it would be best if people wore masks in high congregation, poor ventilation areas...at least while there's significant prevalence of the virus in that area.

But how best to get folks to do these things?

I'm in favor of mandates, but rather than work related (other than risk of spread mitigation), I"d prefer to use access to things we'd like to do, but don't actually have to do.

[Peter Brown]

Our company bumped everyone back to Jan 4th.

Found this tidbit in Newsweek today:

Constitutional accountability is coming for the Biden administration's COVID-19 "emergency temporary standard" (ETS)—better known as Biden's vaccine mandate. The rule, which would require businesses with more than 100 employees to enforce vaccination or weekly testing starting January 4, has run into a maelstrom of legal and political opposition.

Since the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) published the final ETS last Friday, at least 27 states and countless private plaintiffs from around the country filed lawsuits. If history is any guide, OSHA now faces an uphill climb to defend the rule. The agency is relying on the "emergency" authority that allows it to bypass normal procedural safeguards, but that courts have reviewed with a jaundiced eye. Of OSHA's nine previous uses of this authority, six were challenged in court and only one was fully upheld.

Certainly reasonable, what's the count up to now at your company Kram?...we're at 100% and have been since May. Boosters are on the docket next.

OSHA is required to take action if it sees serious risk to workers, but that doesn't mean they have much capacity to actually enforce the rules.

For instance, it's not as if OSHA can check every site where a hard hat is required to see if they're compliant. But what it does do is create a situation in which a whistle blower can bring OSHA in, or more relevantly can show that the employer wasn't following OSHA guidelines and injury resulted from that non-compliance. Liability.

And for those employers which actually want to comply, it provides a cover umbrella for insistence upon workers following OSHA rules.

But if a business does a fairly reasonable job of getting their people to get vaccinated or get tested and someone slips through a bit, not going to find OSHA swooping in to nail them. But there's some real liability if the employer decides to not require employees to do either, or even more flagrantly declares this non-compliance. And then someone dies...hoo boy, I don't want to be that employer.

Where I think the rule is weak, and may be best challenged legally, is that there's inadequate differentiation between work environments. A meat packing plant, for instance, is a way different environment than climbing a telephone pole. The cut-off at 100 employees, while intended to cut some slack on smaller employers, doesn't address the situation in which an employer has 50 workers congregated tightly in a poorly ventilated building...versus a larger company that does outdoors landscaping.

Here's the thing. It would be best for public health (and taxpayer expense) if everyone got vaccinated unless they had a very real medical issue that obviated against vaccination. And for those who have high exposure situations, it would be best if they were tested frequently as they could well be carriers, whether vaccinated or not. And it would be best if people wore masks in high congregation, poor ventilation areas...at least while there's significant prevalence of the virus in that area.

But how best to get folks to do these things?

I'm in favor of mandates, but rather than work related (other than risk of spread mitigation), I"d prefer to use access to things we'd like to do, but don't actually have to do.

So often I feel this website is a parody of state obedience.

It’s uhhhh-mazing, tbh.

Speechless.

Laughing.

Sad for the mindset.

Wow.

I best not comment anymore.

[kramerica.inc]

Our company bumped everyone back to Jan 4th.

Found this tidbit in Newsweek today:

Constitutional accountability is coming for the Biden administration's COVID-19 "emergency temporary standard" (ETS)—better known as Biden's vaccine mandate. The rule, which would require businesses with more than 100 employees to enforce vaccination or weekly testing starting January 4, has run into a maelstrom of legal and political opposition.

Since the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) published the final ETS last Friday, at least 27 states and countless private plaintiffs from around the country filed lawsuits. If history is any guide, OSHA now faces an uphill climb to defend the rule. The agency is relying on the "emergency" authority that allows it to bypass normal procedural safeguards, but that courts have reviewed with a jaundiced eye. Of OSHA's nine previous uses of this authority, six were challenged in court and only one was fully upheld.

Certainly reasonable, what's the count up to now at your company Kram?...we're at 100% and have been since May. Boosters are on the docket next.

OSHA is required to take action if it sees serious risk to workers, but that doesn't mean they have much capacity to actually enforce the rules.

For instance, it's not as if OSHA can check every site where a hard hat is required to see if they're compliant. But what it does do is create a situation in which a whistle blower can bring OSHA in, or more relevantly can show that the employer wasn't following OSHA guidelines and injury resulted from that non-compliance. Liability.

And for those employers which actually want to comply, it provides a cover umbrella for insistence upon workers following OSHA rules.

But if a business does a fairly reasonable job of getting their people to get vaccinated or get tested and someone slips through a bit, not going to find OSHA swooping in to nail them. But there's some real liability if the employer decides to not require employees to do either, or even more flagrantly declares this non-compliance. And then someone dies...hoo boy, I don't want to be that employer.

Where I think the rule is weak, and may be best challenged legally, is that there's inadequate differentiation between work environments. A meat packing plant, for instance, is a way different environment than climbing a telephone pole. The cut-off at 100 employees, while intended to cut some slack on smaller employers, doesn't address the situation in which an employer has 50 workers congregated tightly in a poorly ventilated building...versus a larger company that does outdoors landscaping.

Here's the thing. It would be best for public health (and taxpayer expense) if everyone got vaccinated unless they had a very real medical issue that obviated against vaccination. And for those who have high exposure situations, it would be best if they were tested frequently as they could well be carriers, whether vaccinated or not. And it would be best if people wore masks in high congregation, poor ventilation areas...at least while there's significant prevalence of the virus in that area.

But how best to get folks to do these things?

I'm in favor of mandates, but rather than work related (other than risk of spread mitigation), I"d prefer to use access to things we'd like to do, but don't actually have to do.

We were at 40% vaccinated as of earlier this week. 30% of the religious exemptions have been processed so far.

We have not mentioned the January delay to any employees who have not asked, trying to keep them on the Dec glide path to bring about any issues sooner.

We are going to push to have a positive response from everyone so we can tell the gov, "yes" we are 100% compliant (either vaccinated or exempt) to avoid that 14K a day fine, and then we will deal with individual contract performance issues as they arise. We are going to have a handful of vaccinated people who are going to be doing all the work. And a lot of people who can no longer do their job on payrole. Unless the bases are more slack at allowing entry than they are saying.

[MDlaxfan76]

Our company bumped everyone back to Jan 4th.

Found this tidbit in Newsweek today:

Constitutional accountability is coming for the Biden administration's COVID-19 "emergency temporary standard" (ETS)—better known as Biden's vaccine mandate. The rule, which would require businesses with more than 100 employees to enforce vaccination or weekly testing starting January 4, has run into a maelstrom of legal and political opposition.

Since the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) published the final ETS last Friday, at least 27 states and countless private plaintiffs from around the country filed lawsuits. If history is any guide, OSHA now faces an uphill climb to defend the rule. The agency is relying on the "emergency" authority that allows it to bypass normal procedural safeguards, but that courts have reviewed with a jaundiced eye. Of OSHA's nine previous uses of this authority, six were challenged in court and only one was fully upheld.

Certainly reasonable, what's the count up to now at your company Kram?...we're at 100% and have been since May. Boosters are on the docket next.

OSHA is required to take action if it sees serious risk to workers, but that doesn't mean they have much capacity to actually enforce the rules.

For instance, it's not as if OSHA can check every site where a hard hat is required to see if they're compliant. But what it does do is create a situation in which a whistle blower can bring OSHA in, or more relevantly can show that the employer wasn't following OSHA guidelines and injury resulted from that non-compliance. Liability.

And for those employers which actually want to comply, it provides a cover umbrella for insistence upon workers following OSHA rules.

But if a business does a fairly reasonable job of getting their people to get vaccinated or get tested and someone slips through a bit, not going to find OSHA swooping in to nail them. But there's some real liability if the employer decides to not require employees to do either, or even more flagrantly declares this non-compliance. And then someone dies...hoo boy, I don't want to be that employer.

Where I think the rule is weak, and may be best challenged legally, is that there's inadequate differentiation between work environments. A meat packing plant, for instance, is a way different environment than climbing a telephone pole. The cut-off at 100 employees, while intended to cut some slack on smaller employers, doesn't address the situation in which an employer has 50 workers congregated tightly in a poorly ventilated building...versus a larger company that does outdoors landscaping.

Here's the thing. It would be best for public health (and taxpayer expense) if everyone got vaccinated unless they had a very real medical issue that obviated against vaccination. And for those who have high exposure situations, it would be best if they were tested frequently as they could well be carriers, whether vaccinated or not. And it would be best if people wore masks in high congregation, poor ventilation areas...at least while there's significant prevalence of the virus in that area.

But how best to get folks to do these things?

I'm in favor of mandates, but rather than work related (other than risk of spread mitigation), I"d prefer to use access to things we'd like to do, but don't actually have to do.

We were at 40% vaccinated as of earlier this week. 30% of the religious exemptions have been processed so far.

We have not mentioned the January delay to any employees who have not asked, trying to keep them on the Dec glide path to bring about any issues sooner.

We are going to push to have a positive response from everyone so we can tell the gov, "yes" we are 100% compliant (either vaccinated or exempt) to avoid that 14K a day fine, and then we will deal with individual contract performance issues as they arise. We are going to have a handful of vaccinated people who are going to be doing all the work. And a lot of people who can no longer do their job on payrole. Unless the bases are more slack at allowing entry than they are saying.

Wow, that's worse than most of the worst counties in America.

With the 30% of the religious requests "processed", what's been the outcome of such? A handful accepted, the rest told they'll need to be vaccinated?

Good luck with this. Crazy.

[jhu72]

Our company bumped everyone back to Jan 4th.

Found this tidbit in Newsweek today:

Constitutional accountability is coming for the Biden administration's COVID-19 "emergency temporary standard" (ETS)—better known as Biden's vaccine mandate. The rule, which would require businesses with more than 100 employees to enforce vaccination or weekly testing starting January 4, has run into a maelstrom of legal and political opposition.

Since the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) published the final ETS last Friday, at least 27 states and countless private plaintiffs from around the country filed lawsuits. If history is any guide, OSHA now faces an uphill climb to defend the rule. The agency is relying on the "emergency" authority that allows it to bypass normal procedural safeguards, but that courts have reviewed with a jaundiced eye. Of OSHA's nine previous uses of this authority, six were challenged in court and only one was fully upheld.

Certainly reasonable, what's the count up to now at your company Kram?...we're at 100% and have been since May. Boosters are on the docket next.

OSHA is required to take action if it sees serious risk to workers, but that doesn't mean they have much capacity to actually enforce the rules.

For instance, it's not as if OSHA can check every site where a hard hat is required to see if they're compliant. But what it does do is create a situation in which a whistle blower can bring OSHA in, or more relevantly can show that the employer wasn't following OSHA guidelines and injury resulted from that non-compliance. Liability.

And for those employers which actually want to comply, it provides a cover umbrella for insistence upon workers following OSHA rules.

But if a business does a fairly reasonable job of getting their people to get vaccinated or get tested and someone slips through a bit, not going to find OSHA swooping in to nail them. But there's some real liability if the employer decides to not require employees to do either, or even more flagrantly declares this non-compliance. And then someone dies...hoo boy, I don't want to be that employer.

Where I think the rule is weak, and may be best challenged legally, is that there's inadequate differentiation between work environments. A meat packing plant, for instance, is a way different environment than climbing a telephone pole. The cut-off at 100 employees, while intended to cut some slack on smaller employers, doesn't address the situation in which an employer has 50 workers congregated tightly in a poorly ventilated building...versus a larger company that does outdoors landscaping.

Here's the thing. It would be best for public health (and taxpayer expense) if everyone got vaccinated unless they had a very real medical issue that obviated against vaccination. And for those who have high exposure situations, it would be best if they were tested frequently as they could well be carriers, whether vaccinated or not. And it would be best if people wore masks in high congregation, poor ventilation areas...at least while there's significant prevalence of the virus in that area.

But how best to get folks to do these things?

I'm in favor of mandates, but rather than work related (other than risk of spread mitigation), I"d prefer to use access to things we'd like to do, but don't actually have to do.

We were at 40% vaccinated as of earlier this week. 30% of the religious exemptions have been processed so far.

We have not mentioned the January delay to any employees who have not asked, trying to keep them on the Dec glide path to bring about any issues sooner.

We are going to push to have a positive response from everyone so we can tell the gov, "yes" we are 100% compliant (either vaccinated or exempt) to avoid that 14K a day fine, and then we will deal with individual contract performance issues as they arise. We are going to have a handful of vaccinated people who are going to be doing all the work. And a lot of people who can no longer do their job on payrole. Unless the bases are more slack at allowing entry than they are saying.

Wow, that's worse than most of the worst counties in America.

With the 30% of the religious requests "processed", what's been the outcome of such? A handful accepted, the rest told they'll need to be vaccinated?

Good luck with this. Crazy.

... Kram, I really really doubt OSHA is going to hit you with 14K fine for every non-compliant individual. We have lots of experience with "feared" Federal regulators. They have always been reasonable. Document the company's effort, contemporaneously, showing good faith. You will do fine, meaning no fine.

[MDlaxfan76]

I think his even more challenging concern is base access.

Not sure 'religious exemptions' cut it...

[Typical Lax Dad]

Our company bumped everyone back to Jan 4th.

Found this tidbit in Newsweek today:

Constitutional accountability is coming for the Biden administration's COVID-19 "emergency temporary standard" (ETS)—better known as Biden's vaccine mandate. The rule, which would require businesses with more than 100 employees to enforce vaccination or weekly testing starting January 4, has run into a maelstrom of legal and political opposition.

Since the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) published the final ETS last Friday, at least 27 states and countless private plaintiffs from around the country filed lawsuits. If history is any guide, OSHA now faces an uphill climb to defend the rule. The agency is relying on the "emergency" authority that allows it to bypass normal procedural safeguards, but that courts have reviewed with a jaundiced eye. Of OSHA's nine previous uses of this authority, six were challenged in court and only one was fully upheld.

Certainly reasonable, what's the count up to now at your company Kram?...we're at 100% and have been since May. Boosters are on the docket next.

OSHA is required to take action if it sees serious risk to workers, but that doesn't mean they have much capacity to actually enforce the rules.

For instance, it's not as if OSHA can check every site where a hard hat is required to see if they're compliant. But what it does do is create a situation in which a whistle blower can bring OSHA in, or more relevantly can show that the employer wasn't following OSHA guidelines and injury resulted from that non-compliance. Liability.

And for those employers which actually want to comply, it provides a cover umbrella for insistence upon workers following OSHA rules.

But if a business does a fairly reasonable job of getting their people to get vaccinated or get tested and someone slips through a bit, not going to find OSHA swooping in to nail them. But there's some real liability if the employer decides to not require employees to do either, or even more flagrantly declares this non-compliance. And then someone dies...hoo boy, I don't want to be that employer.

Where I think the rule is weak, and may be best challenged legally, is that there's inadequate differentiation between work environments. A meat packing plant, for instance, is a way different environment than climbing a telephone pole. The cut-off at 100 employees, while intended to cut some slack on smaller employers, doesn't address the situation in which an employer has 50 workers congregated tightly in a poorly ventilated building...versus a larger company that does outdoors landscaping.

Here's the thing. It would be best for public health (and taxpayer expense) if everyone got vaccinated unless they had a very real medical issue that obviated against vaccination. And for those who have high exposure situations, it would be best if they were tested frequently as they could well be carriers, whether vaccinated or not. And it would be best if people wore masks in high congregation, poor ventilation areas...at least while there's significant prevalence of the virus in that area.

But how best to get folks to do these things?

I'm in favor of mandates, but rather than work related (other than risk of spread mitigation), I"d prefer to use access to things we'd like to do, but don't actually have to do.

We were at 40% vaccinated as of earlier this week. 30% of the religious exemptions have been processed so far.

We have not mentioned the January delay to any employees who have not asked, trying to keep them on the Dec glide path to bring about any issues sooner.

We are going to push to have a positive response from everyone so we can tell the gov, "yes" we are 100% compliant (either vaccinated or exempt) to avoid that 14K a day fine, and then we will deal with individual contract performance issues as they arise. We are going to have a handful of vaccinated people who are going to be doing all the work. And a lot of people who can no longer do their job on payrole. Unless the bases are more slack at allowing entry than they are saying.

Wow, that's worse than most of the worst counties in America.

With the 30% of the religious requests "processed", what's been the outcome of such? A handful accepted, the rest told they'll need to be vaccinated?

Good luck with this. Crazy.

Insanity. Folks want the government out of their lives until it comes to receiving a paycheck.

[Peter Brown]

Bhattacharya & Kulldorff: Vaccine mandates are unethical

COVID-19 vaccines have become the touchpoint of a significant social battle, with unvaccinated Americans–mostly working-class people and minorities–forced out of work and to the edge of society by vaccine mandates. Given what we have learned about the epidemiological effects of the vaccines over the past year, the mandates have no scientific justification.

The evidence to date shows conclusively that the COVID-19 vaccines–even six months after full vaccination–protect well against severe COVID-19 disease, including hospitalization and death. Despite this fact, surprisingly, four lines of scientific evidence imply that not everyone needs to be vaccinated.

First, as for most other viruses, those who have recovered from COVID-19 have natural immunity. We now know that it is stronger and longer-lasting than vaccine-induced immunity. In a study from Israel, the vaccinated were 27 times more likely to get symptomatic COVID-19 than those with natural immunity. This fact does not mean that it is better to get infected than getting the vaccine, but it does mean that the COVID-recovered are already well-protected. They may get some additional protection from the vaccine, but since their risk is already very small, any additional risk reduction is also small.

Second, while anyone can get infected, there is more than a thousand-fold difference in COVID-19 mortality between the oldest and the youngest. For children, the risks are lower than from the annual influenza. During the first COVID-19 wave in the spring of 2020, Sweden was the only major Western country to keep daycare and schools open for all its 1.8 million children ages 1 to 15. Without masks, social distancing, testing, or vaccines, there were precisely zero COVID-19 deaths among the children, while the teachers had a lower risk than the average of other professions.

Third, as with any drug or vaccine, there are some risks with the COVID-19 vaccine, including myocarditis in children and young adults. It typically takes a couple of years until we have a clear picture of the safety of a new drug or vaccine. For children, the mortality risk from COVID-19 is minuscule, so even a small risk from the vaccine can tip the balance in an unfavorable direction. The same is true for the COVID-recovered.

Fourth, unlike the polio and measles vaccines, the COVID-19 vaccines do not stop the transmission of infection. They are excellent at reducing the risk of severe disease and death, but their ability to prevent infection wanes after a few months. Therefore, even if you are vaccinated, you will eventually be infected.

With milder symptoms, it could even be that the vaccinated are more likely to spread it to others, compared to the unvaccinated, who are more likely to be bedridden at home. Hence, when we urge people to get vaccinated, we do it mainly for their own sake, not for protecting others.

Let’s pull these facts together to see what it means for vaccination policy.

Older people who have not had COVID-19 should immediately get the vaccine. It can save your life! There are still some unvaccinated older people. Saving lives is a key aim of public health, and persuading this group to be vaccinated should be the focus of our vaccination efforts.

It is an odd reality about vaccine mandates that they aim to increase vaccination among working-age adults and even children, including those with natural immunity, rather than the high-risk elderly. The well of public trust in public health is finite, and to waste it on a policy that seeks to increase vaccination rates in a lower-risk population makes little sense.

It is unethical to use vaccines on those who do not need them, when many others do need them to survive COVID-19. This includes millions of poor, high-risk older people in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, where there is still a vaccine shortage.

It is also unethical to fire people who choose not to get vaccinated. Many of the vaccine-hesitant were the heroes of last year–nurses, policemen, firefighters, truckers, and others who kept our society functioning while the laptop class stayed home during the lockdowns. They worked unvaccinated and got COVID-19 as a result. They should be rewarded for their selflessness, not pushed to the edge of society, a new underclass.

The vaccine mandates force vaccines on many people who do not want them or need them. There is now widespread distrust of public health agencies and officials and increasing vaccine skepticism as a result. The loss of trust has generated vaccine skepticism of unseen proportions. It has contributed to a dangerous decline in childhood vaccination rates for other diseases and made it harder to convince the remaining older people to get vaccinated.

During the special session to come, the Florida legislature has a chance to solve the ethical problems caused by vaccine mandates and passports in one stroke. We encourage the legislature to prohibit discrimination based on vaccine status, whether for employment, schools, or anything else. That will help reestablish trust in public health.

Jay Bhattacharya, M.D., Ph.D., is a health economist, epidemiologist, and professor of Medicine at Stanford University; Martin Kulldorff, Ph.D., is a biostatistician, epidemiologist, and scientific director at the Brownstone Institute.


https://alachuachronicle.com/bhattachar ... unethical/

[kramerica.inc]

Our company bumped everyone back to Jan 4th.

Found this tidbit in Newsweek today:

Constitutional accountability is coming for the Biden administration's COVID-19 "emergency temporary standard" (ETS)—better known as Biden's vaccine mandate. The rule, which would require businesses with more than 100 employees to enforce vaccination or weekly testing starting January 4, has run into a maelstrom of legal and political opposition.

Since the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) published the final ETS last Friday, at least 27 states and countless private plaintiffs from around the country filed lawsuits. If history is any guide, OSHA now faces an uphill climb to defend the rule. The agency is relying on the "emergency" authority that allows it to bypass normal procedural safeguards, but that courts have reviewed with a jaundiced eye. Of OSHA's nine previous uses of this authority, six were challenged in court and only one was fully upheld.

Certainly reasonable, what's the count up to now at your company Kram?...we're at 100% and have been since May. Boosters are on the docket next.

OSHA is required to take action if it sees serious risk to workers, but that doesn't mean they have much capacity to actually enforce the rules.

For instance, it's not as if OSHA can check every site where a hard hat is required to see if they're compliant. But what it does do is create a situation in which a whistle blower can bring OSHA in, or more relevantly can show that the employer wasn't following OSHA guidelines and injury resulted from that non-compliance. Liability.

And for those employers which actually want to comply, it provides a cover umbrella for insistence upon workers following OSHA rules.

But if a business does a fairly reasonable job of getting their people to get vaccinated or get tested and someone slips through a bit, not going to find OSHA swooping in to nail them. But there's some real liability if the employer decides to not require employees to do either, or even more flagrantly declares this non-compliance. And then someone dies...hoo boy, I don't want to be that employer.

Where I think the rule is weak, and may be best challenged legally, is that there's inadequate differentiation between work environments. A meat packing plant, for instance, is a way different environment than climbing a telephone pole. The cut-off at 100 employees, while intended to cut some slack on smaller employers, doesn't address the situation in which an employer has 50 workers congregated tightly in a poorly ventilated building...versus a larger company that does outdoors landscaping.

Here's the thing. It would be best for public health (and taxpayer expense) if everyone got vaccinated unless they had a very real medical issue that obviated against vaccination. And for those who have high exposure situations, it would be best if they were tested frequently as they could well be carriers, whether vaccinated or not. And it would be best if people wore masks in high congregation, poor ventilation areas...at least while there's significant prevalence of the virus in that area.

But how best to get folks to do these things?

I'm in favor of mandates, but rather than work related (other than risk of spread mitigation), I"d prefer to use access to things we'd like to do, but don't actually have to do.

We were at 40% vaccinated as of earlier this week. 30% of the religious exemptions have been processed so far.

We have not mentioned the January delay to any employees who have not asked, trying to keep them on the Dec glide path to bring about any issues sooner.

We are going to push to have a positive response from everyone so we can tell the gov, "yes" we are 100% compliant (either vaccinated or exempt) to avoid that 14K a day fine, and then we will deal with individual contract performance issues as they arise. We are going to have a handful of vaccinated people who are going to be doing all the work. And a lot of people who can no longer do their job on payrole. Unless the bases are more slack at allowing entry than they are saying.

Wow, that's worse than most of the worst counties in America.

With the 30% of the religious requests "processed", what's been the outcome of such? A handful accepted, the rest told they'll need to be vaccinated?

Good luck with this. Crazy.

We have a sit-down or call with those apply for a religious exemption.
Ask simple question- why is this against your beliefs?
Then we ask if they are wiling to mask and test.
All have said yes, so no issues yet.
All religious/medical exemptions accepted.

[MDlaxfan76]

Our company bumped everyone back to Jan 4th.

Found this tidbit in Newsweek today:

Constitutional accountability is coming for the Biden administration's COVID-19 "emergency temporary standard" (ETS)—better known as Biden's vaccine mandate. The rule, which would require businesses with more than 100 employees to enforce vaccination or weekly testing starting January 4, has run into a maelstrom of legal and political opposition.

Since the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) published the final ETS last Friday, at least 27 states and countless private plaintiffs from around the country filed lawsuits. If history is any guide, OSHA now faces an uphill climb to defend the rule. The agency is relying on the "emergency" authority that allows it to bypass normal procedural safeguards, but that courts have reviewed with a jaundiced eye. Of OSHA's nine previous uses of this authority, six were challenged in court and only one was fully upheld.

Certainly reasonable, what's the count up to now at your company Kram?...we're at 100% and have been since May. Boosters are on the docket next.

OSHA is required to take action if it sees serious risk to workers, but that doesn't mean they have much capacity to actually enforce the rules.

For instance, it's not as if OSHA can check every site where a hard hat is required to see if they're compliant. But what it does do is create a situation in which a whistle blower can bring OSHA in, or more relevantly can show that the employer wasn't following OSHA guidelines and injury resulted from that non-compliance. Liability.

And for those employers which actually want to comply, it provides a cover umbrella for insistence upon workers following OSHA rules.

But if a business does a fairly reasonable job of getting their people to get vaccinated or get tested and someone slips through a bit, not going to find OSHA swooping in to nail them. But there's some real liability if the employer decides to not require employees to do either, or even more flagrantly declares this non-compliance. And then someone dies...hoo boy, I don't want to be that employer.

Where I think the rule is weak, and may be best challenged legally, is that there's inadequate differentiation between work environments. A meat packing plant, for instance, is a way different environment than climbing a telephone pole. The cut-off at 100 employees, while intended to cut some slack on smaller employers, doesn't address the situation in which an employer has 50 workers congregated tightly in a poorly ventilated building...versus a larger company that does outdoors landscaping.

Here's the thing. It would be best for public health (and taxpayer expense) if everyone got vaccinated unless they had a very real medical issue that obviated against vaccination. And for those who have high exposure situations, it would be best if they were tested frequently as they could well be carriers, whether vaccinated or not. And it would be best if people wore masks in high congregation, poor ventilation areas...at least while there's significant prevalence of the virus in that area.

But how best to get folks to do these things?

I'm in favor of mandates, but rather than work related (other than risk of spread mitigation), I"d prefer to use access to things we'd like to do, but don't actually have to do.

We were at 40% vaccinated as of earlier this week. 30% of the religious exemptions have been processed so far.

We have not mentioned the January delay to any employees who have not asked, trying to keep them on the Dec glide path to bring about any issues sooner.

We are going to push to have a positive response from everyone so we can tell the gov, "yes" we are 100% compliant (either vaccinated or exempt) to avoid that 14K a day fine, and then we will deal with individual contract performance issues as they arise. We are going to have a handful of vaccinated people who are going to be doing all the work. And a lot of people who can no longer do their job on payrole. Unless the bases are more slack at allowing entry than they are saying.

Wow, that's worse than most of the worst counties in America.

With the 30% of the religious requests "processed", what's been the outcome of such? A handful accepted, the rest told they'll need to be vaccinated?

Good luck with this. Crazy.

We have a sit-down or call with those apply for a religious exemption.
Ask simple question- why is this against your beliefs?
Then we ask if they are wiling to mask and test.
All have said yes, so no issues yet.
All religious/medical exemptions accepted.

hmmm, do you expect that to cut it with access to base?
I seem to recall that was the biggest concern.

What % do you expect to thereby have exempted?
If just a small %, then I suspect no sweat...but if a large % then you do stand the risk of that "process" being challenged, whether by someone who gets sick, whether your employee or someone from them, or by the government. Simply waiving people through merely for a claim of a "belief" that is not consistent with any actual religious practices of the individuals could well be challenged as intentionally not compliant.

But if the testing and masking is done rigorously, and that's acceptable for on base access, seems like it could be sufficient, at least for the government...watch out for liability claims, though.

Tough spot...good luck.

[kramerica.inc]

I think his even more challenging concern is base access.

Not sure 'religious exemptions' cut it...

Yes. There's multiple concerns here:
The OSHA and Fed mandate are two concerns. But we are doing our best to document and do it all properly, in good faith.
Base access is the tough one for us. Despite being military bases, each base has different rules based upon threat level/commander/location and a myriad of other factors including who's manning the gate on any given day.
Our guys usually work on equipment on installations alone, in huge barren warehouses, or outside, in the middle of nowhere.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Our company bumped everyone back to Jan 4th.

Found this tidbit in Newsweek today:

Constitutional accountability is coming for the Biden administration's COVID-19 "emergency temporary standard" (ETS)—better known as Biden's vaccine mandate. The rule, which would require businesses with more than 100 employees to enforce vaccination or weekly testing starting January 4, has run into a maelstrom of legal and political opposition.

Since the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) published the final ETS last Friday, at least 27 states and countless private plaintiffs from around the country filed lawsuits. If history is any guide, OSHA now faces an uphill climb to defend the rule. The agency is relying on the "emergency" authority that allows it to bypass normal procedural safeguards, but that courts have reviewed with a jaundiced eye. Of OSHA's nine previous uses of this authority, six were challenged in court and only one was fully upheld.

Certainly reasonable, what's the count up to now at your company Kram?...we're at 100% and have been since May. Boosters are on the docket next.

OSHA is required to take action if it sees serious risk to workers, but that doesn't mean they have much capacity to actually enforce the rules.

For instance, it's not as if OSHA can check every site where a hard hat is required to see if they're compliant. But what it does do is create a situation in which a whistle blower can bring OSHA in, or more relevantly can show that the employer wasn't following OSHA guidelines and injury resulted from that non-compliance. Liability.

And for those employers which actually want to comply, it provides a cover umbrella for insistence upon workers following OSHA rules.

But if a business does a fairly reasonable job of getting their people to get vaccinated or get tested and someone slips through a bit, not going to find OSHA swooping in to nail them. But there's some real liability if the employer decides to not require employees to do either, or even more flagrantly declares this non-compliance. And then someone dies...hoo boy, I don't want to be that employer.

Where I think the rule is weak, and may be best challenged legally, is that there's inadequate differentiation between work environments. A meat packing plant, for instance, is a way different environment than climbing a telephone pole. The cut-off at 100 employees, while intended to cut some slack on smaller employers, doesn't address the situation in which an employer has 50 workers congregated tightly in a poorly ventilated building...versus a larger company that does outdoors landscaping.

Here's the thing. It would be best for public health (and taxpayer expense) if everyone got vaccinated unless they had a very real medical issue that obviated against vaccination. And for those who have high exposure situations, it would be best if they were tested frequently as they could well be carriers, whether vaccinated or not. And it would be best if people wore masks in high congregation, poor ventilation areas...at least while there's significant prevalence of the virus in that area.

But how best to get folks to do these things?

I'm in favor of mandates, but rather than work related (other than risk of spread mitigation), I"d prefer to use access to things we'd like to do, but don't actually have to do.

We were at 40% vaccinated as of earlier this week. 30% of the religious exemptions have been processed so far.

We have not mentioned the January delay to any employees who have not asked, trying to keep them on the Dec glide path to bring about any issues sooner.

We are going to push to have a positive response from everyone so we can tell the gov, "yes" we are 100% compliant (either vaccinated or exempt) to avoid that 14K a day fine, and then we will deal with individual contract performance issues as they arise. We are going to have a handful of vaccinated people who are going to be doing all the work. And a lot of people who can no longer do their job on payrole. Unless the bases are more slack at allowing entry than they are saying.

Wow, that's worse than most of the worst counties in America.

With the 30% of the religious requests "processed", what's been the outcome of such? A handful accepted, the rest told they'll need to be vaccinated?

Good luck with this. Crazy.

We have a sit-down or call with those apply for a religious exemption.
Ask simple question- why is this against your beliefs?
Then we ask if they are wiling to mask and test.
All have said yes, so no issues yet.
All religious/medical exemptions accepted.

Sounds like the bases will be the bad guys…..

Pre COVID-19 article on Religion & Vaccinations

https://www.historyofvaccines.org/conte ... -confusion

[kramerica.inc]

Our company bumped everyone back to Jan 4th.

Found this tidbit in Newsweek today:

Constitutional accountability is coming for the Biden administration's COVID-19 "emergency temporary standard" (ETS)—better known as Biden's vaccine mandate. The rule, which would require businesses with more than 100 employees to enforce vaccination or weekly testing starting January 4, has run into a maelstrom of legal and political opposition.

Since the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) published the final ETS last Friday, at least 27 states and countless private plaintiffs from around the country filed lawsuits. If history is any guide, OSHA now faces an uphill climb to defend the rule. The agency is relying on the "emergency" authority that allows it to bypass normal procedural safeguards, but that courts have reviewed with a jaundiced eye. Of OSHA's nine previous uses of this authority, six were challenged in court and only one was fully upheld.

Certainly reasonable, what's the count up to now at your company Kram?...we're at 100% and have been since May. Boosters are on the docket next.

OSHA is required to take action if it sees serious risk to workers, but that doesn't mean they have much capacity to actually enforce the rules.

For instance, it's not as if OSHA can check every site where a hard hat is required to see if they're compliant. But what it does do is create a situation in which a whistle blower can bring OSHA in, or more relevantly can show that the employer wasn't following OSHA guidelines and injury resulted from that non-compliance. Liability.

And for those employers which actually want to comply, it provides a cover umbrella for insistence upon workers following OSHA rules.

But if a business does a fairly reasonable job of getting their people to get vaccinated or get tested and someone slips through a bit, not going to find OSHA swooping in to nail them. But there's some real liability if the employer decides to not require employees to do either, or even more flagrantly declares this non-compliance. And then someone dies...hoo boy, I don't want to be that employer.

Where I think the rule is weak, and may be best challenged legally, is that there's inadequate differentiation between work environments. A meat packing plant, for instance, is a way different environment than climbing a telephone pole. The cut-off at 100 employees, while intended to cut some slack on smaller employers, doesn't address the situation in which an employer has 50 workers congregated tightly in a poorly ventilated building...versus a larger company that does outdoors landscaping.

Here's the thing. It would be best for public health (and taxpayer expense) if everyone got vaccinated unless they had a very real medical issue that obviated against vaccination. And for those who have high exposure situations, it would be best if they were tested frequently as they could well be carriers, whether vaccinated or not. And it would be best if people wore masks in high congregation, poor ventilation areas...at least while there's significant prevalence of the virus in that area.

But how best to get folks to do these things?

I'm in favor of mandates, but rather than work related (other than risk of spread mitigation), I"d prefer to use access to things we'd like to do, but don't actually have to do.

We were at 40% vaccinated as of earlier this week. 30% of the religious exemptions have been processed so far.

We have not mentioned the January delay to any employees who have not asked, trying to keep them on the Dec glide path to bring about any issues sooner.

We are going to push to have a positive response from everyone so we can tell the gov, "yes" we are 100% compliant (either vaccinated or exempt) to avoid that 14K a day fine, and then we will deal with individual contract performance issues as they arise. We are going to have a handful of vaccinated people who are going to be doing all the work. And a lot of people who can no longer do their job on payrole. Unless the bases are more slack at allowing entry than they are saying.

Wow, that's worse than most of the worst counties in America.

With the 30% of the religious requests "processed", what's been the outcome of such? A handful accepted, the rest told they'll need to be vaccinated?

Good luck with this. Crazy.

We have a sit-down or call with those apply for a religious exemption.
Ask simple question- why is this against your beliefs?
Then we ask if they are wiling to mask and test.
All have said yes, so no issues yet.
All religious/medical exemptions accepted.

hmmm, do you expect that to cut it with access to base?
I seem to recall that was the biggest concern.

What % do you expect to thereby have exempted?
If just a small %, then I suspect no sweat...but if a large % then you do stand the risk of that "process" being challenged, whether by someone who gets sick, whether your employee or someone from them, or by the government. Simply waiving people through merely for a claim of a "belief" that is not consistent with any actual religious practices of the individuals could well be challenged as intentionally not compliant.

But if the testing and masking is done rigorously, and that's acceptable for on base access, seems like it could be sufficient, at least for the government...watch out for liability claims, though.

Tough spot...good luck.

Yes, access is the biggest concern. Right now there are no real access issues. We hope it keeps like that after the vaccine mandate.
We expect around 40-45% to be exempt.
No, we don't expect the process to be challenged because there is no mandated process. Internally we don't know what an audit would look like so it's pretty straight forward: either a vaccine card, DR's note, or an attestation.
That covers the Fed mandate and OSHA.
But Base access is very weird. And different from base to base, depending on where we are going on base. We work everywhere from office buildings to down range, and beyond security checkpoints. To be honest with you, Covid is the least deadly thing these guys are working with.

[wgdsr]

vaxx is holding up vs delta in texas:
https://www.webmd.com/vaccines/covid-19 ... exas-study

the study:
https://www.dshs.texas.gov/immunize/cov ... tatus.aspx

[jhu72]

After you get your mandated vaccine - take a detox cleanse. People too stupid to live. Apparently their range is not just limited to the US.

[Typical Lax Dad]

After you get your mandated vaccine - take a detox cleanse. People too stupid to live. Apparently their range is not just limited to the US.

Mouth breathers

[wgdsr]

After you get your mandated vaccine - take a detox cleanse. People too stupid to live. Apparently their range is not just limited to the US.

Mouth breathers

says the guy that's good with heavy metal in his veins.

i got cupped once but it wasn't that.

[Typical Lax Dad]

After you get your mandated vaccine - take a detox cleanse. People too stupid to live. Apparently their range is not just limited to the US.

Mouth breathers

says the guy that's good with heavy metal in his veins.

i got cupped once but it wasn't that.

“anti-vaccine influencers”….I bet it pays well on YouTube.