90 School Bus Drivers Who Don’t Want Vaccines Quit, + More
90 School Bus Drivers Who Don’t Want Vaccines Quit, CPS Offering $1,000 to Students Without Rides
Chicago’s new COVID-19 vaccine requirement has prompted a lot of school bus drivers to quit.
Chicago Public Schools said Sunday that 90 bus drivers quit between August 23-27. About 70 of those drivers quit on the same day.
“According to the bus companies, the rush of resignations was likely driven by the vaccination requirements,” the school district said.
Like many districts across the country, CPS had anticipated a shortage of bus drivers before the city announced vaccination requirements. They had planned to work around the shortage by scheduling earlier pickups. But the loss of another 10% of drivers has left 2,100 students without a ride.
The district’s answer? To pay students to find their own way: $1,000 for the first two weeks of school and $500 a month after that.
18 Percent of Americans Say They Would Quit Their Job Over Vaccine, Mask Mandates
Employed Americans said they are most likely to quit a job immediately if faced with COVID-19 vaccination and/or mask mandates, a new Morning Consult poll reveals.
When asked to describe something their employer could do to make them submit their resignation on the spot, 18% of respondents mentioned “vaccine, mask, or testing requirements,” even without Morning Consult having mentioned COVID-19 in the prompt. The second-most cited reason was pay cuts — 14% of respondents said they would quit if their employer reduced their salary “for no good cause or reason.”
Cover Letter, Resume, Vaccine Card? No Shot, No Pay For Some Workers
COVID-19 cases are on the rise again.
According to the Center for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC), COVID-19 cases have surged over the last few weeks. More than 101,000 new cases were reported on Aug. 3, compared to about 16,000 new cases on June 1.
While 70% of Americans have received at least one dose of the vaccine and half of the population is now fully vaccinated, there are still millions of Americans who have yet to get their shots. Because of the uptick in cases, companies are starting to require workers to get vaccinated for COVID-19 as a condition of employment.
CDC Asks the Unvaccinated Not to Travel This Weekend and Says Even the Vaccinated Need to Weigh the Risk
Due to the surge of COVID-19 cases, the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is asking unvaccinated Americans not to travel during the Labor Day holiday weekend.
The U.S. is surpassing an average of 160,000 new COVID-19 cases a day, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. With the spread of the more transmissible Delta variant and many students returning to the classroom for a new academic year, the rise is concerning officials and health experts.
“First and foremost, if you are unvaccinated, we would recommend not traveling,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said at a White House COVID-19 Response Team Briefing on Tuesday.
Over Half of Employers Plan to Have Vaccine Mandates by the End of the Year
Now that the Federal Drug Administration approved Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, many employers have been ramping up their plans to vaccine their workforce. By the end of the year, 52% of U.S. companies plan to have some type of vaccine mandate in place for their workplaces.
That’s up significantly from the just 29% of employers who reported they already have a vaccine mandate or plan to put one in place by the end of September 2021, according to a new report by Willis Towers Watson. The company surveyed nearly 1,000 employers in August, including both public and private businesses, as well as non-profits and government entities. Companies surveyed had 100 to over 25,000 employees and included those in manufacturing, healthcare, utilities, finance, IT, and general services.
Italy Extends COVID-19 Green Pass to Trains, Planes, Ferries and Coaches
Reuters via U.S. News reported:
Italy broadened usage of Green Pass health documents on Wednesday, making them obligatory for anyone traveling on high-speed trains, planes, ferries and inter-regional coaches.
The Green Pass is a digital or paper certificate that shows whether someone has received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose, has tested negative or has recently recovered from the virus.
Prime Minister Mario Draghi introduced the pass earlier in the summer to try to prevent infections and encourage people to get vaccinated. It was initially needed to enter many cultural and leisure venues, but its scope has gradually been widened.
Some Hotels Are Mandating Vaccines. Will Others Follow?
As travelers prepare for their next vacation, among the essentials to take along — like a toothbrush, wallet and phone charger — could be proof of vaccination for COVID-19, depending on where they are booked to sleep.
As coronavirus cases surge again across the country, driven by the highly contagious Delta variant, a small number of hotels in the United States have announced that they will require proof of vaccination from guests and staff.
Accommodations such as PUBLIC Hotel, Equinox Hotel and Wythe Hotel, all in New York City, Urban Cowboy Lodge in Big Indian, N.Y., a hamlet in the Catskill Mountains, and Pilgrim House in Provincetown, Mass., are among the first in the United States to announce that they will require evidence of vaccination, via a physical card or a digital verification, from their guests.
Three Professors Among Group Opposing Vaccine Mandate at the University of Waterloo
At least three professors are among a small group of university staff and students who are calling on the University of Waterloo to revoke their vaccine mandate.
In a letter, 32 people say they are categorically in disagreement with the university’s position on vaccine requirement which says staff and students must show proof of immunization before coming to campus.
The three professors are Michael Palmer, who teaches biochemistry, math professor Edward Vrscay and Richard Mann in computer science.
Others against a vaccine mandate include staff, students and parents.
Democratic Lawmaker Appears to Falsely Question COVID-19 Vaccine Safety in Social Posts
An Inkster Democratic state lawmaker recently published several social media posts that appear to question the safety of COVID-19 vaccines and the necessity of vaccine mandates.
The posts from Rep. Jewell Jones appear to go against the findings of the vast majority of research and the advice of most state and national experts — along with the leaders of his political party.
Last week, Jones took to his active Instagram account to post a meme featuring actor Jon Hamm from a scene in the television series “Mad Men.”
“Stop saying you did your research before you got the injection,” the meme states.
“You are the research.”
Colorado Mandates COVID Vaccines for Health Care Workers at Thousands of Facilities
Colorado health care workers at about 3,800 licensed facilities across the state must be vaccinated against COVID-19 by the end of October, the state Board of Health voted in an emergency session Monday evening.
The new vaccine mandate applies to staff and contractors who interact with patients or clients in assisted living homes, nursing homes, hospitals, hospices, community clinics and a variety of other health care settings that are regulated by the board. The mandate does not apply to individual practitioners, doctors’ offices or urgent care centers.
The board implemented the temporary emergency rule on a 6-1 vote after Gov. Jared Polis on Aug. 17 requested that it consider an immediate vaccine mandate.
NYS Health Dept. Eliminates Religious Exemption for Health Care Workers Avoiding Vaccine
The New York State Department of Health has eliminated the religious exemption for health care workers statewide who do not want to get vaccinated.
The decision was unanimous.
The department of health also established a deadline that all hospitals and nursing homes must require their employees to be fully vaccinated, with the first dose received no later than Sept. 27.
“Years back, when they mandated Measles vaccination, they did so in the absence of any religious exemptions,” said Steven Hanks, St. Peter’s Health Partners Chief Clinical Officer. “They felt that the public health outweighed the religious rights. I don’t believe we’re going to see a huge exodus of staff and I believe that’s the case because everybody is in the same boat.”
Here’s What to Know About China’s Sweeping Tech Crackdown — and Why It Could Make U.S. Big Tech Regulation More Likely
In the latest sign that the unfettered growth enjoyed by China’s tech giants is coming to an end, Beijing has unveiled a raft of new regulations that reasserts the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s authority over every aspect of its citizens’ digital lives.
Among the new regulations: a law that reduces the amount of time that children and teens are allowed to spend playing video games to just three hours per week, and a directive banning online celebrity fan clubs.
The new rules are part of a broader crackdown by Beijing against domestic tech titans like Tencent and Alibaba. “The story of Chinese tech companies over the last 15 years is, they grew quickly and became innovative because they existed in this space that the state did not regulate and did not fundamentally understand,” says Adam Segal, the director of the digital and cyberspace policy program at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Now it has clearly laid down the marker and said: That era is over.”
‘Smart’ Shirt With Nanotube Fibers Can Monitor Your Heart
Over the years, we’ve seen many examples of smart clothing equipped with technology to monitor various aspects of a wearer’s physical well-being, but lately, we’ve seen how very thin conductive fibers can make work more comfortable.
Researchers at Rice University have applied this approach to a smart shirt that uses interwoven carbon nanotube fibers to monitor the heart rate and take a continual electrocardiogram (EKG) of the wearer. According to the researchers, the fibers are as conductive as metal wires but washable, comfortable, and far less likely to break when a body is in motion.
The Navy Invented a Device to Prevent People From Talking
The U.S. Navy has invented a new device to prevent people from speaking, one that people with siblings will recognize instantly. The handheld acoustic hailing and disruption device records a person’s speech and spits it back out again, disrupting their concentration and discouraging them from speaking further. Although an interesting — and very familiar — concept it’s unlikely this tech will ever see use on the battlefield.
The handheld acoustic hailing and disruption (AHAD) was developed by engineers at Naval Surface Warfare, Crane Division, a Navy research and development facility in Indiana that develops handheld and crew-served weapons for the service. The patent, New Scientist reports, was issued in 2019 but only discovered this year.
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