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With COVID out of control, Biden unveils hefty vaccine mandates:
President Joe Biden on Thursday unveiled a sweeping six-pronged plan to try to regain control over the COVID-19 pandemic, which is wildly raging once again in the US.
[...] The main focus of the president's "Path out of the Pandemic" plan is on reducing the number of unvaccinated people in the country. As such, the plan's most prominent elements are hefty vaccination requirements for millions of federal employees, health care workers, school employees, and even employees of private businesses.
Biden signed an executive order Thursday requiring COVID-19 vaccines for millions of federal workers plus millions more federal contractors. The new vaccine mandate eliminates a previous option that allowed federal workers to undergo regular testing in lieu of vaccination.
In addition to mandating vaccines for federal workers, Biden will also require vaccination for over 17 million health care workers who work at facilities that receive federal funding. The administration had previously required vaccination for all staff of federally funded nursing homes. The new requirements will extend vaccine mandates to hospitals, dialysis facilities, ambulatory surgical settings, and home health agencies—most facilities that receive Medicaid and Medicare reimbursements.
[...] The administration is also working on a rule—to be implemented through the Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration—that will require employers with 100 or more workers to ensure that their workforce is fully vaccinated or submits to regular COVID-19 testing. The rule is expected to apply to over 80 million employees nationwide. OSHA is also working on a separate rule that will require those employers to provide paid time off to get vaccinated.
For schools, Biden will require vaccination for the nearly 300,000 staff in federal Head Start and Early Head start programs. He will also put pressure on governors to get all teachers and school staff vaccinated. Last, the administration will push more schools to implement regular testing, which will be funded by $10 billion the administration already allocated to schools earlier this year.
Also at CNN, www.aljazeera.com
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 10 2021, @12:07PM (9 children)
My workplace offered 100 bucks bonus to get vaccinated.
Turns out people's greed exceeds their care for themselves or others. Everyone got it pretty promptly except a couple die hard religious holdouts.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 10 2021, @02:50PM (7 children)
That's the thing at this point most of the unvaxxed that can still be persuaded are likely to go for rewards, either money or ability to go back to business as usual. The return of mask mandates and the related BS is counterproductive. For most of the unvaccinated, it's just not compelling to get vaccinated and still have to live as if you're not. It's also not scientifically necessary. The vast majority of the people getting seriously ill are either unvaccinated or have compromised immune systems. If you're not hanging out with people that are in one of those two groups, then there's really no point in the masks or most of the BS.
It also requires that the vaccinated have more regard for the lives of the unvaccinated than the unvaccinated do for themselves.
The CDC and governors need to stop lying to the people, at this point, only idiots take what they're saying without a grain of salt. Keep the 6 feet whenever you can and avoid being places where you can't keep the distance and you'll be good to go. Just the 6 feet alone would be sufficient to cut down on the chances to a huge degree.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 10 2021, @04:56PM
Offering rewards could backfire though, as people put off getting the vaccine to see how high the rewards will go. It is also unfair to the people who went and got the vaccine early. For being good citizens they miss out on the reward. Good luck getting them quickly vaccinated for COVID-2X.
(Score: 5, Touché) by edIII on Friday September 10 2021, @08:03PM (5 children)
I'm sorry, but you're an idiot (and I'm not flaming you by calling you an idiot, it's simply what you are). You are in no position to say what is scientifically necessary. Scientists are the only ones in the position to make such statements. As for the masks and "related BS" being counterproductive, it's the opposite, productive. As in, it produces results.
Your observation about "hanging out with people" is just ignorant. I don't hang out with anti-vaxxer, anti-mask idiots at all. Primarily because that would be taking huge risks of getting a breakthrough infection I don't want. However, while I don't hang out with them, I do have to spend time near them pumping gas, getting groceries, standing in line at the bank, picking up food at a restaurant, etc. Since I'm not ignorant and cursed with sophisticated intelligence and understanding, I take extreme measures to curb all interaction with society now. Pumping gas as late as possible in remote areas, getting everything delivered, online financial transactions, and foregoing restaurants and entertainment venues permanently.
What idiots like you have in common is your incredible ignorance. Ignorance in how probability works, how selections and permutations work, how thermodynamics work and air flow work, particle suspension in air, virus transmission, etc. A N95 mask isn't 100%, so every single second I'm near an idiot like you, I'm making selections. Selections against the probability that you are spewing out particles of COVID into the air, selections against my mask, selections against my body and immune system. The probabilities are in constant flux depending on the environment. If we are BOTH wearing masks, then guess what? Even if you are infected, the selections we both make against the air particles and our masks have a far lower probability of having COVID. That is because your mask when worn properly is making selections, and the probability of COVID particles escaping you into our common shared air is LOW. That's why even with a mask I refuse to go to the grocery store if there is anybody in there whatsoever without a properly (both mouth and nose) worn mask. I won't make those selections because the risk is simply too high.
You ignore by default any scientist that could enlighten you as either part of a conspiracy, or pushing a political agenda. That is the most dangerous behavior I can possibly think of, and it will be written on the tombstone of America.
The 6ft rule is fucking stupid too. It always was. It may be 6ft at STP, but I guarantee you that it changes with temperature, humidity, and wind speed. It's not a magic shield like one would see on a sci-fi show. Likewise, the virus isn't in possession of decision making faculties capable of choosing not to infect AC because it was 6.1 ft away, or not to infect somebody because they weren't in the building while you were in it unmasked, or to not infect somebody because those two people don't hang out on a regular basis. So when you act like a child and remove your mask just because nobody else is in the building, or watching you, you vastly increase the risk to others. Even taking the mask down for a second to speak vastly changes the probabilities around you, and to the detriment of the public.
What I find amazing since this was all politicized by that piece of orange shit, are the constant whines about freedom. Yet, I never heard the same volume of complaints about forced vaccinations for children to attend public school. Those that had religious reasons to protest homeschooled their children, and the rest went to school. Only now because of the politics and rampant ignorance is it all of the sudden about "freedom".
Masks are incredibly effective in curbing the spread, and everybody got the vaccine this might just be over. Instead due to idiots such as yourself, COVID is never going away now and likely to mutate beyond the protections of the vaccine. It's small comfort that it kills idiots like you by the hundreds each day, because once you are gone, the problem still remains.
So 5 years from now when we are still wearing masks, and our country has fundamentally changed, you know who is responsible for it. Idiots like YOU.
*golf clap* *golf clap* *golf clap* *golf clap* *golf clap* *golf clap*
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 11 2021, @12:47AM (4 children)
When I was growing up, cowardice was regarded by everyone as a huge character fault. Now in 2021 you are flaunting it and somehow expecting everyone to bend over backwards to accommodate the cowardly you. This thing will kill the society more surely than a hundred "pandemics" such as this puny one, all going on at once.
Every year, TEN TIMES MORE people just like you die from other causes than from your scary, scary virus. Yet you got told The Virus is what you should fear, and you obliged. You are not just plain coward; you are a mindless coward. Congratulations, drone!
(Score: 5, Touché) by edIII on Saturday September 11 2021, @01:31AM (3 children)
Again, the idiots speak. Taking precautions is cowardice. Wearing a mask is cowardice. Taking a vaccine is cowardice. If I'm flaunting my cowardice, you are sure as hell flaunting your toxic masculinity and arrogant, selfish, stupidity. You remind me of Vizzini from Princess Bride, "Perhaps you're relying on your great strength to save you...". COVID doesn't give a fuck about your bravado, and your YOLO attitude is the character fault. It's not like you're an idiot risking your life like in death defying stunts that only affect you and your family. You risk us all.
Bend over backwards? Wearing a mask during a pandemic, stand 6ft away, and take your fucking medicine is bending over backwards? What a fucktard you are. You didn't consider that is you asking us to bend over backwards to accommodate your selfishness and arrogance? What is killing society is the overly masculine Fox-news programmed idiots such as yourself. You're the reason what some hospitals now need to resort towards rationing of care. You know extreme measures like battle field triage?
You act like a big man calling it a scary, scary, viwus! News flash dipshit, which is ironic because you would claim it fake, over a half million people have died from it, and even more are going to suffer long term effects.
As for people dying from those other causes, I don't remember 10 years ago hearing that hospitals were all of the sudden overwhelmed by those other causes. I don't remember a time when the health care system was this stressed. I don't remember a time when a dozen teachers died in the first couple of weeks of school and they needed to shut down the school system. You're attempt to downplay the virus only makes you seem like the mindless drone programmed by those like Tucker Carlson and related filth at Fox News.
You're the perfect example of what I was talking about.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 11 2021, @06:55AM (1 child)
you know someone's desperate beyond belief when all they have to attack someone's argument in the year of our lord 2021 is "bawwww you're a stupid toxic fox news watching chud!!!". every fucking word of this post comes off as neural network-generated reddit gibberish and i am appalled that mouthbreathers like you are allowed to blindly spew propaganda like this online, let alone on a website that's as unassuming and low-key as this one. with every single passing day i continue to quietly pray that a solar flare comes along and knocks us back into the early 1900s so i never have to read boomer-y agitprop about a crappy, ineffective bioengineered cold ever again
(Score: 2) by edIII on Saturday September 11 2021, @11:21PM
They made an argument?
Don't worry. Keep not wearing masks and not taking the vaccine and you will be off this planet soon enough.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 12 2021, @08:49PM
So...you have asteroid impact insurance, right? And you have your alien abduction antidote with you at all times, right? I'll bet you don't even drive--because driving increases your risk of dying.
What? You don't? Are you a fucking nutjob, religious extremist?
(Score: 2) by driverless on Saturday September 11 2021, @10:43AM
That's the thing with these strong principles, they're often only strongly defended when there's nothing at stake. There's a saying in the advertising industry, "Ask people whether they care about their [online] privacy and 100% will say yes; ask them whether they're willing to give up their privacy for a McDonalds voucher and 100% will say yes". Same with vaccination, "muh freedums" goes away as soon as you offer someone money over it.