Tag Archives: vaccine mandates

Freedom Convoy spreads, thousands descend on Paris

Proverbs 22:8 “Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity, and the rod of his fury will fail.”

Important Takeaways:

  • Nearly 360,000 protesters descend on Paris in convoy against vaccine mandates
  • Taking inspiration from Canada’s Freedom Convoy, French truckers and protesters have taken to the streets of Paris to protest vaccine mandates in a convoy that has already come into conflict with French authorities
  • Labeled “Le Convoi de la Liberte,” the convoy is made up of trucks, cars, and motorcycles.
  • The convoy made its way to Paris from southern France, but more convoys are anticipated to arrive in the capital from other parts of the country, the report noted.
  • Similar movements have begun taking shape in Australia and New Zealand, according to the report.

Read the original article by clicking here.

As Canada declares National Emergency over “Freedom Convoy” some say they’re reliving communism

Important Takeaways:

  • Survivors of Communism Say They’re Reliving it in Canada as Government Targets ‘Freedom Convoy’
  • “Freedom Convoy” truckers are drawing attention to public health measures, such as vaccine mandates, and how they are an overreach by the government and abuse of power.
  • Twitter user Laura Lynn Tyler Thompson recently interviewed a woman who traveled from Toronto
    • When asked why she came to Ottawa, the woman explained: “We stand behind them. We come from communist country and we came here because we didn’t want to have oppression,” she explained. “We wanted to live in a free country. For the last two years, we are living like prisoners. We are being told to stay at home, not to go to the restaurant, not to go to the church. I mean this is unbelievable.”
  • Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson declared a state of emergency
    • “Declaring a state of emergency reflects the serious danger and threat to the safety and security of residents posed by the ongoing demonstrations and highlights the need for support from other jurisdictions and levels of government,” the statement reads.

Read the original article by clicking here.

Factbox: Latest on the worldwide spread of the coronavirus

(Reuters) – A federal judge on Tuesday blocked the last of the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates for businesses, saying the government exceeded it authority with a requirement that millions of employees of federal contractors be inoculated.

EUROPE

* EU health ministers discussed measures to try to halt the spread of the Omicron variant, with the Netherlands calling for negative tests for incoming travelers from outside the bloc and France urging tests even for those arriving from EU states.

* Britain reported 45,691 new COVID-19 cases and 180 deaths within 28 days of a positive coronavirus test, government statistics showed.

* France on Tuesday registered a surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations as a rise in new infections in mid-November led to an increase in patient numbers.

* Portugal’s health authority DGS gave the green light for the use of the Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine for children between the ages of five and 11.

* The party is over for Poles this holiday season with nightclubs set to close in the face of high COVID-19 case numbers, the government said, with the exceptions of, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.

* The Norwegian government introduced stricter rules on Tuesday to limit the spread of COVID-19, including a cap on the number of visitors in private homes and shortening the hours bars and restaurants can serve alcohol.

AMERICAS

* Canada will soon crack down on COVID-19 mandates, forcing banks, telecommunications companies and all other federally regulated workspaces to ensure their employees are inoculated.

* President Jair Bolsonaro criticized Brazil’s health regulator Anvisa for proposing a vaccination requirement for travelers arriving in the country to help prevent the spread of new coronavirus variants.

* Mexico City officials will begin offering a third vaccine dose to residents over the age of 60, officials said.

ASIA-PACIFIC

* The Philippines economy is likely to grow faster than previously thought this year, but downside risks caused by the pandemic persist, the World Bank said.

* A nascent recovery in Asia-Pacific international travel demand has been set back by the Omicron variant as governments tighten rules, but airline bosses say they hope any backward moves will be short-lived.

MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA

* Up to one million COVID-19 vaccines are estimated to have expired in Nigeria last month without being used, two sources told Reuters, one of the biggest single losses of doses that shows the difficulty African nations have getting shots in arms.

* The African Union on Tuesday called for an urgent end to travel restrictions imposed on some of its member states, saying the measures effectively penalize governments for timely data sharing in line with international health regulations.

MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS

* Preliminary evidence indicates that the Omicron variant likely has a higher degree of transmissibility but is less severe, top U.S. infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci said.

* The head of the European Medicines Agency said it could soon approve the vaccine developed by U.S. biotech company Novavax.

ECONOMIC IMPACT

* New travel restrictions prompted by the Omicron variant have dealt a setback to the nascent recovery in international flights, creating delays and headaches in some regions, according to airline and airport officials.

(Compiled by Juliette Portala, Federico Maccioni and Shailesh Kuber; Editing by Robert Birsel, Mark Heinrich and Shounak Dasgupta)

 

Canadian, U.S. truckers warn vaccine mandates will disrupt supply chains

By Steve Scherer and David Shepardson

OTTAWA/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The main trucking lobbies in Canada and the United States are warning that vaccine and testing requirements for workers will further disrupt supply chains because there is already a dire shortage of drivers.

Canada will require vaccines for truck drivers starting in January, while the Biden administration has issued rules requiring truck drivers at companies with 100 or more employees to be vaccinated or submit to weekly testing.

More than two-thirds of goods traded between Canada and the United States travels on roads and highways. For most of the pandemic, truckers crossed the border regularly as they were considered essential workers to keep supply chains flowing.

“We know that there already is disruption in the supply chain; this is going to intensify it,” said Stephen Laskowski, president and chief executive of the Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA), which represents some 4,500 carriers.

It estimates that 10-20%, or between 12,000-22,000 of Canadian truck drivers, and 40%, or some 16,000 of U.S. truck drivers traveling into Canada would be sidelined if the requirement begins.

“This is not a trucking issue. This is a Canada-U.S. economic issue,” Laskowski told Reuters, adding about 70% of that C$650 billion ($507 billion) U.S.-Canada trade moves by truck.

The American Trucking Associations (ATA), together with others, is seeking to block U.S. President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate in court.

A U.S. appeals court issued a temporary stay last month blocking the requirements. The court found “all else equal, a 28 year-old trucker spending the bulk of his workday in the solitude of his cab is simply less vulnerable to COVID-19 than a 62-year-old prison janitor.”

The Justice Department has asked another court to throw out the temporary stay, and a decision could come as soon as mid-December.

Supply chain problems caused by the pandemic has contributed to inflation in both countries rising to decades high.

“Given the nature of our industry and makeup of our workforce, (it) could have devastating impacts on the supply chain and the economy,” ATA President and CEO Chris Spear said in a statement.

In written comments filed with the Labor Department, the ATA said the nation’s motor carriers could lose up to 37% of their drivers to “retirements, attrition to smaller carriers and/or conversion to independent contractor owner-operators.”

Motor carriers move 70% of all U.S. freight tonnage.

Laskowski said there are already 18,000 job vacancies for truck drivers in Canada and he is pushing to delay the Jan. 15 deadline to give companies more time to deal with the situation.

Canada’s Transport, Health and Trade ministries did not comment when asked whether truckers would be given more time.

A Transport Ministry spokesman said it encourages “all Canadian industries to develop COVID-19 vaccination requirements for their employees.”

Despite the potential disruptions, some 70% of Canadians support Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s strict mandates, according to an EKOS Research poll.

“We’ll be seeing shortages of goods in stores” if the vaccine requirement deadline is not delayed, said Perrin Beatty, president of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.

($1 = 1.2826 Canadian dollars)

(Reporting by Steve Scherer in Ottawa and David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

 

Analysis – COVID-19 pills are coming, but no substitute for vaccines, disease experts say

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Oral antiviral pills from Merck & Co and Pfizer Inc/BioNTech SE have been shown to significantly blunt the worst outcomes of COVID-19 if taken early enough, but doctors warn vaccine hesitant people not to confuse the benefit of the treatments with prevention afforded by vaccines.

While 72% of American adults have gotten a first shot of the vaccine, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll, the pace of vaccination has slowed, as political partisanship in the United States divides views on the value and safety of vaccines against the coronavirus.

Vaccine mandates by employers, states and the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden have helped increase vaccinations but also fueled that controversy.

Some disease experts fear the arrival of oral COVID-19 treatments may further impede vaccination campaigns. Preliminary results of a survey of 3,000 U.S. citizens by the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Public Health suggest the drugs could “hamper the effort to get people vaccinated,” said Scott Ratzan, an expert in health communication at CUNY, who led the research.

Ratzan said one out of every eight of those surveyed said they would rather get treated with a pill than be vaccinated. “That is a high number,” Ratzan said.

The concern follows news on Friday from Pfizer, maker of a leading COVID-19 vaccine, that its experimental antiviral pill Paxlovid cut the risk of hospitalization and death from the disease by 89% in high-risk adults.

Pfizer’s results followed news from Merck and partner Ridgeback Biotherapeutics on Oct. 1 that their oral antiviral drug cut hospitalization and death by half. That drug, known as molnupiravir, won conditional approval in the UK on Thursday. Both need clearance from U.S. health regulators but could be on the market in December.

“By relying exclusively on an antiviral drug, it’s a bit of a roll of the dice in terms of how you will do. Clearly, it’s going to be better than nothing, but it’s a high-stakes game to play,” said Dr. Peter Hotez, a vaccine expert and professor of molecular virology and microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine.

Six infectious disease experts interviewed by Reuters were equally enthusiastic about the prospect of effective new treatments for COVID-19 and agreed they were no substitute for vaccines.

Even in the face of the highly transmissible Delta variant of the virus, the vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech remain effective, cutting the risk of hospitalization by a combined 86.8%, according to a government study of U.S. veterans.

They said some unvaccinated people have already relied on monoclonal antibodies – drugs that need to be delivered through intravenous IV infusions or injections – as a backstop in case they become infected. “I think the Pfizer news is terrific news. It goes hand in hand with vaccination. It doesn’t replace it,” said Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician and public health professor at George Washington University and Baltimore’s former health commissioner.

Choosing not to get vaccinated “would be a tragic mistake,” said Albert Bourla, chief executive officer of Pfizer Inc. “These are treatments. This is for the unfortunate who will get sick,” Bourla told Reuters in an interview on Friday. “This should not be a reason not to protect yourself and to put yourself, your household and society in danger.”

ANTIVIRAL CHALLENGES

One main reason not to rely on the new pills, the experts said, is that antiviral medications, which stop the virus from replicating in the body, must be given in a narrow window early in the disease because COVID-19 has different phases.

In the first phase, the virus rapidly replicates in the body. A lot of the worst effects of COVID-19, however, occur in the second phase, arising from a defective immune response that gets triggered by the replicating virus, said Dr. Celine Gounder, an infectious disease expert and the CEO and founder of Just Human Productions, a non-profit multimedia organization.

“Once you develop shortness of breath or other symptoms that would lead you to be hospitalized, you are in that dysfunctional immune phase where the antivirals are really not going to provide much benefit,” she said. Hotez agreed. He said getting treated early enough could be challenging because the window when the virus transitions from the replication phase to the inflammatory phase is fluid. “For some people, that will happen earlier; for some, later,” Hotez said. Hotez said many people in the early phase of the illness feel surprisingly well and may be unaware that their oxygen levels are dropping, one of the first signs that the inflammatory phase of the disease has started. “Oftentimes, you’re not going to realize that you’re getting sick until it’s too late,” he said.

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Additional reporting by Josephine Mason in London, Deena Beasley in Los Angeles and Manojna Maddipatla in Bengaluru; editing by Caroline Humer and Grant McCool)

From Boeing to Mercedes, a U.S. worker rebellion swells over vaccine mandates

By Tina Bellon and Eric M. Johnson

AUSTIN/SEATTLE (Reuters) – In Wichita, Kansas, nearly half of the roughly 10,000 employees at aircraft companies Textron Inc and Spirit AeroSystems remain unvaccinated against COVID-19, risking their jobs in defiance of a federal mandate, according to a union official.

“We’re going to lose a lot of employees over this,” said Cornell Beard, head of the local Machinists union district. Many workers did not object to the vaccines as such, he said, but were staunchly opposed to what they see as government meddling in personal health decisions.

The union district has hired a Texas-based lawyer to assist employees and prepare potential lawsuits against the companies should requests for medical or religious exemptions to vaccination be denied.

A life-long Democrat, Beard said he would no longer vote for the party. “They’ll never get another vote from me and I’m telling the workers here the same thing.”

The clock is ticking for companies that want to continue gaining federal contracts under an executive order by Democratic President Joe Biden, which requires all contractor employees be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by Dec. 8.

That means federal contract workers need to have received their last COVID-19 shot at least two weeks before the deadline to gain maximum protection, according to U.S. government guidance.

With a three-week gap between shots of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, workers must get the first jab by Wednesday. If the government holds fast to its deadline, it is already too late to choose Moderna’s vaccine, which is given in two doses four weeks apart. Workers could opt to get Johnson & Johnson’s single-shot vaccine until Nov. 24 to meet the deadline.

Vaccines remain by far the most effective way to prevent COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths, particularly faced with the extremely contagious Delta variant of the virus that can cause infections even among those fully vaccinated.

Despite vocal opposition from some, vaccine mandates have been effective at shrinking the rates of the unvaccinated and convincing the reluctant to roll up their sleeves.

Several big employers such as Procter & Gamble, 3M and airlines including American Airlines and JetBlue have imposed mandates. In some industries, including among food workers, unions have supported vaccine requirements.

But the mandate has stirred protests from workers in industries across the country, as well as from Republican state officials.

Opposition to the mandate could potentially lead to thousands of U.S. workers losing their jobs and imperil an already sluggish economic recovery, union leaders, workers and company executives said.

More legal clashes are likely over how companies decide requests for vaccination exemptions.

For the companies, time is getting tight, though the Biden administration has signaled federal contractors will not have to immediately lay off unvaccinated workers who miss the Dec. 8 deadline.

Under government guidance published on Monday, companies will have flexibility over how to implement the mandate, which may allow them to avoid mass firings.

“A covered contractor should determine the appropriate means of enforcement with respect to its employee,” the guidance said.

For Boeing Co in the United States, more than 7,000 workers have applied for religious exemptions and around 1,000 are seeking medical exemptions, people familiar with the matter told Reuters. That amounts to some 6% of the plane maker’s roughly 125,000 U.S employees.

‘ILLEGAL, IMMORAL AND IMPRACTICAL’

At a rally last week outside Boeing property in Auburn, south of Seattle, many of the three dozen workers gathered in driving rain said they would rather be escorted off Boeing property on Dec. 8 than take a vaccine. Others said they would pursue early retirement.

“The mandate is illegal, immoral and impractical,” said one veteran Boeing program analyst who attended the rally. “We are standing together against a company and government trampling on our rights.”

Many legal experts have said vaccine mandates in the interest of public health are legal. The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected several challenges to mandates, with the high court last week turning away a healthcare worker who sought a religious exemption to a COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

The rebellion has put Boeing executives in a bind. The company could lose skilled staff, but must comply with a presidential order.

A Boeing spokesperson said the company was committed to maintaining a safe working environment for its employees.

The order’s provision for religious and medical exemptions is causing more tension.

Two Textron workers who requested religious exemptions told Reuters the company’s human resources representatives quizzed them on the name of their church leaders and asked detailed questions about their faith.

Textron declined to respond to questions, but in a statement said it was obligated to comply with Biden’s order and was taking steps to do so.

“Employees who are unable to receive the COVID-19 vaccination due to a medical condition or sincerely held religious belief are being provided an opportunity to request an accommodation from this requirement,” Textron said.

Spirit AeroSystems did not respond to a request for comment.

Raytheon Technologies’ CEO Greg Hayes last week warned the U.S. defense firm will lose “several thousand” employees because of the mandate.

A group representing FedEx Corp, United Parcel Service Inc and other cargo carriers said it would be virtually impossible to have all their workforces vaccinated by the deadline.

Some companies have imposed vaccine mandates even absent immediate government regulation.

Mercedes-Benz USA, the U.S. unit of German carmaker Daimler AG which is not a U.S. government contractor, told employees in an October email seen by Reuters that proof of vaccination against COVID-19 would become a condition of employment beginning Jan. 4.

The carmaker said it implemented the move in anticipation of a separate U.S. government vaccine mandate that would apply to businesses with at least 100 employees, affecting some 80 million workers nationwide.

Less than half of the company’s workers at U.S. import processing centers are vaccinated and many refuse to get a shot, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Mercedes USA in a statement said it had given employees 90-day notice to fulfill the requirement, adding that two thirds of its U.S. employees – not including factory workers in Alabama – have provided proof of vaccination to date.

“We expect that the vast majority of our employees will provide proof of vaccination before the deadline,” the company said.

(Reporting by Tina Bellon in Austin, Texas and Eric M. Johnson in Seattle, Washington; Editing by Joe White and Bill Berkrot)

U.S. workers face layoffs as U.S COVID-19 vaccine mandates kick in

By Nathan Layne

(Reuters) – Thousands of unvaccinated workers across the United States are facing potential job losses as a growing number of states, cities and private companies start to enforce mandates for inoculation against COVID-19.

In the latest high-profile example, Washington State University (WSU) fired its head football coach and four of his assistants on Monday for failing to comply with the state’s vaccine requirement. The coach, Nick Rolovich, had applied for a religious exemption from the mandate earlier this month.

Thousands of police officers and firefighters in cities like Chicago and Baltimore are also at risk of losing their jobs in the coming days under mandates that require them to report their vaccination status or submit to regular coronavirus testing.

While controversial, the mandates have been effective at convincing many hesitant workers to get vaccinated against the virus, which has killed more than 700,000 people in the United States. Some 77% of eligible Americans have received at least one shot of a vaccine, White House COVID-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients told reporters last week.

In Chicago, Mayor Lori Lightfoot has been battling with the police union, which came out against the vaccine mandate for city workers. About a third of the city’s 12,770 police employees missed a Friday deadline to report their vaccination status, and some officers have been put on no-pay status.

“Fundamentally, what this all is about is about saving lives. It’s about maximizing the opportunity to create a safe workplace,” Lightfoot said on Monday, accusing the union of tying to “induce an insurrection” by opposing the mandate.

Chicago Fraternal Order of Police union president John Catanzara did not respond to a request for comment.

The White House, which announced sweeping vaccine requirements in a bid to reduce hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19 in the wake of a surge driven by the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus, has been a major catalyst behind the inoculation push.

On Friday, some 200 Boeing Co employees and others staged a protest over the plane maker’s requirement that 125,000 workers be vaccinated by Dec. 8, under an executive order issued by President Joe Biden for federal contractors.

The rules for another order applying to private businesses with 100 or more employees are expected to be finalized soon.

Along with the mandate for federal workers and contractors, Biden’s vaccine requirements will cover roughly 100 million people, about two-thirds of the U.S. workforce.

The White House has been meeting with executives of several major companies to discuss Biden’s private-sector vaccination plan.

A wave of layoffs has already swept through the healthcare industry, which moved more quickly than others to impose vaccine mandates given the heightened COVID-19 exposure risk for patients and staff.

Nurses and other healthcare workers who chose to leave their jobs rather than be immunized recently told Reuters they could not get past their concern over a lack of long-term data on the three vaccines available in the United States.

While the vaccines received emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration in less than a year, medical experts have widely vouched for their safety, citing years of research, large clinical trials and real world data after hundreds of millions have been vaccinated worldwide.

Like WSU’s Rolovich, many unvaccinated workers seeking an exemption have done so on religious grounds. It was not clear how a university committee in charge of weighing such exemptions ruled in his case.

School leaders said the mandate was aimed at ensuring the safety of its faculty and staff.

“Experience is showing that vaccine mandates help motivate people to complete the vaccination process,” Marty Dickinson, WSU Board of Regents Chair, said in a statement.

(Reporting by Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut and Nandita Bose in Washington; Editing by Bill Berkrot)