NYC To Require Vaccines And Weekly Tests For City Employees In Health Industry

Why would this be necessary? I thought most New Yorkers were Democrats, and Democrats were gung ho to take the vaccine? No? Anyway, first

Vaccinated Pelosi and Biden aides test positive for COVID
The Pelosi aide had contact with the delegation of fleeing Texas Democrats that contracted COVID-19

Huh. Good job, Fleebaggers. More locally

Vaccinated people still getting coronavirus in NC

In fairness, people who get COVID after having one of the shots have very mild symptoms.

New York to Require Vaccination or Weekly Testing for City Health Workers

For months, Mayor Bill de Blasio has been reluctant to make coronavirus vaccinations mandatory for anyone, hoping that encouragement, convenience and persuasion would be enough.

But with two million adult New Yorkers still unvaccinated — including a high percentage of employees in the public hospital system — and the Delta variant threatening the city with a third wave of cases, City Hall is trying out a new tactic: requiring workers in city-run hospitals and health clinics to get vaccinated or else get tested on a weekly basis, the mayor’s spokesman said Tuesday.

Only around 60 percent of health workers are vaccinated. You’d think the people who were in the trenches during the big outbreaks would want to be protected. Perhaps they know something about the vaccines? I’m not against them, I took it, and I’ll take the booster if they think it is a good idea. I hate being sick.

The new policy, which will be announced by Mr. de Blasio on Wednesday and goes into effect at the beginning of August, goes nowhere near as far as San Francisco’s announcement last month that it would eventually require all municipal employees to get vaccinated. Still, it is Mr. de Blasio’s first move to require any city employee to show proof of vaccination or a recent negative coronavirus test as a condition of showing up to work, city officials said. It will apply to more than 10 percent of the well over 300,000 people who work for city government.

It remains unclear whether City Hall intends to expand this approach to other city employees — police officers, teachers, clerical workers — or will limit this to those who work in hospitals and clinics.

Expect that they will expand it. And then there’s the Washington Post

Opinion: Stop pleading with anti-vaxxers and start mandating vaccinations

This is by super serious Conservative Max Boot. Because all Conservatives would mandate government doing this, right? The article is behind the Washington Post’s now super-serious paywall (I can’t even copy to Pocket anymore), but, it is available in full here. And here’s MarketWatch

Opinion: More employers should mandate COVID-19 vaccines for workers — for the health of their business

Over at NBC

Vaccine mandates more likely once FDA grants full approvals, health experts say

The United States could see a wave of Covid-19 vaccine mandates as soon as the Food and Drug Administration grants full approval to one or more of the shots, public health experts predicted. (snip)

But as the pace of vaccinations lags and concerns about the highly-contagious delta variant grow, the official regulatory signoff would remove a significant legal and public relations barrier for businesses and government agencies that want to require vaccinations for their employees and customers, former health officials from the Biden and the Obama administrations said.

“I think once the vaccines go through full FDA approval, everything should be on the table, and I think that everything will be on the table at the level of municipalities, states, employers, venues, government agencies,” said Andy Slavitt, who stepped down as President Joe Biden’s Covid response coordinator last month and remains in close contact with administration officials.

That could get ugly.