This happened in California, where the mandatory mask requirement has been lifted by the Governor for the vaccinated. So in most places of business there are going to be masked and unmasked people, perfectly legally and in compliance with state mandates. Full disclosure - I also wasn't wearing a mask in the store, having been fully vaccinated.
People should be free and allowed to make their choices to be vaccinated or not. But I'm getting this bad feeling that more and more of these conflicts are going to arise.
Every day is a gift, not a given right.
I'm fully vaccinated, but I still wear my mask whenever I go out. Not everybody else does the same, but I feel better wearing the mask than not.
What you need to know about the coronavirus variants
- The delta variant (B.1.617)
- The beta variant (B.1.351)
- The alpha variant (B.1.1.7)
- The gamma variant (P. 1)
- The iota variant (B.1.526)
- The ‘Eeek’ mutation (E484K)
- The Denmark/California mutation (L452R)
- The original variant (D614G)
As more significant variants are reported, the obvious (and arguably most important) question is whether the vaccines will work on them. Some of the mutations have sparked particular concern because they affect the spikes on the virus, which is what the vaccines target.
In short, the pharmaceutical companies are testing new variants against their vaccines and spinning up new trials. Moderna and Pfizer can update their vaccines quickly because of their mRNA technology, which can be reprogrammed to target new variants.
A growing number of scientists anticipate that we will eventually need something similar to the annual flu shot — companies will periodically update their vaccines to match the prevalent coronavirus variants, and we will need to get boosters to stay protected.
“With flu, we need to adapt the vaccines. We can see that already,” said Ravindra Gupta, a professor of clinical microbiology at the University of Cambridge. “The companies do realize there is a problem in the longer term, and they will deal with it just as we have done with flu every year.”
Original join date: 11/23/2004
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Doctors, nurses and other health groups call for mandatory coronavirus vaccinations for health workers
Medical groups representing millions of doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other health workers on Monday called for mandatory vaccinations of all U.S. health personnel against the coronavirus, framing the move as a moral imperative as new infections mount sharply.
“We call for all health care and long-term care employers to require their employees to be vaccinated against covid-19,” the American Medical Association, the American Nurses Association and 55 other groups wrote in a joint statement shared with The Washington Post. “The health and safety of U.S. workers, families, communities, and the nation depends on it.”The statement — issued by many groups calling for a mandate for the first time — represents an increasingly tough stance by the medical and public health establishment amid the sluggish pace of national vaccinations. It comes as new cases rip through the nation, driven by the hyper-transmissible delta variant. Confirmed coronavirus infections have nearly quadrupled during July, from about 13,000 cases per day at the start of the month to more than 50,000 now, according to The Post’s tracking. Hospital leaders in states such as Alabama, Florida and Missouri have implored holdouts to get vaccinated, citing data that the shots prevent hospitalizations and even death.But many workers in the health field remain unvaccinated, despite having priority access to coronavirus vaccines, which first became available in December. More than 38 percent of nursing home staff were not fully vaccinated as of July 11, despite caring for patients at elevated risk from the coronavirus, according to data collected by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and analyzed by LeadingAge, which represents nonprofit nursing homes and other providers of elder care.
An analysis by WebMD and Medscape Medical News estimated that about 25 percent of hospital workers who had contact with patients had not been vaccinated by the end of May.
Health leaders said that the slowed pace of vaccinations, coupled with the threat of the delta variant, compelled them to act.“We feel that it’s important to sign our name onto this,” said Rachel Villanueva, an OB/GYN and the president of the National Medical Association, which represents more than 50,000 Black physicians and is calling for a vaccination mandate for the first time.
Original join date: 11/23/2004
Eclectic Connoisseur of all things written, drawn, or imaginatively created.
This must sound so, SO naive... but... how can someone be a qualified nurse or doctor and be AGAINST vaccines??? I just... I don't understand that. It makes no logical sense to me???
"We are Shakespeare. We are Michelangelo. We are Tchaikovsky. We are Turing. We are Mercury. We are Wilde. We are Lincoln, Lorca, Leonardo da Vinci. We are Alexander the Great. We are Fredrick the Great. We are Rustin. We are Addams. We are Marsha! Marsha Marsha Marsha! We so generous, we DeGeneres. We are Ziggy Stardust hooked to the silver screen. Controversially we are Malcolm X. We are Plato. We are Aristotle. We are RuPaul, god dammit! And yes, we are Woolf."
I can understand maybe a month of hesitancy when the vaccines first came out, but I agree, by now every health care worker in the US and everywhere else in the world that has access to the vaccines should be vaccinated.
I can remember stories, early in the pandemic, of Health Care workers dying from COVID. You would think that would motivate the rest of them to get vaccinated.
Original join date: 11/23/2004
Eclectic Connoisseur of all things written, drawn, or imaginatively created.
In Louisiana, Vaccine Misinformation Has Public Health Workers Feeling ‘Stuck’
SHREVEPORT, La. — Dr. Martha Whyte, the top public health official in the northwest corner of Louisiana, was sitting at the back of a City Council meeting here on a muggy day recently when she was called to the front of the room to respond to an attack on the coronavirus vaccine.
Candy Peavy, a resident, had warned that the Biden administration would send people door to door to “document unvaccinated Americans” — a false but widespread conspiracy theory. Not only that, Ms. Peavy had told the hundreds in attendance, but the vaccine was an “experimental gene therapy” that had killed thousands in the United States.
“We should refuse to be tracked, discriminated against, bribed, controlled, threatened, shamed or coerced into compliance,” she had shouted to applause.Dr. Whyte calmly began a practiced monologue on the vaccine. It does not integrate into one’s DNA, she said. No one in Louisiana has died from the vaccine — one of the safest ever produced, she added. Several women yelled and swore at her before they were asked to leave.
“We’re stuck,” Dr. Whyte, 55, said in an interview days later in her fifth-floor government office, surrounded by awards she has received over almost 20 years as medical director of a public health region in Louisiana bordering Texas and Arkansas. Coronavirus variants are swarming the area and threatening a major uptick in cases and deaths
Facing deep mistrust that has been stoked by conservative news outlets and lawmakers and by rampant misinformation online, local health officials like Dr. Whyte are fighting for influence when the only sure strategy for beating back the virus is getting more people vaccinated. Dr. Whyte considers herself a target at a time when many public health officials around the country have resigned or been fired during the pandemic, including the top vaccine official in Tennessee this month.
A year and a half into the crisis, their battered departments are now struggling to contain the spread of the Delta variant with testing and contact tracing — the best resources, despite their limited reach, in the many places where vaccination rates remain low. They are facing new heights of hostility, and new battles are looming over what safety measures schools and businesses should put in place in the fall, decisions the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said should be made in consultation with local health officials.
Original join date: 11/23/2004
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Avatar: Here's to the late, great Steve Dillon. Best. Punisher. Artist. EVER!
It seems just bizarre, how do they administer medicine when they seem to... be against medicine??? ESPECIALLY when they are being exposed to the virus more than any other group. Surely self-protection kicks in? Or is this just a hugely minor minor faction? And the press use all five examples they found across millions to up the tension that it's a serious issue?
I just can't. I don't understand how they work in medicine yet cause such dangers by avoiding medicine???
"We are Shakespeare. We are Michelangelo. We are Tchaikovsky. We are Turing. We are Mercury. We are Wilde. We are Lincoln, Lorca, Leonardo da Vinci. We are Alexander the Great. We are Fredrick the Great. We are Rustin. We are Addams. We are Marsha! Marsha Marsha Marsha! We so generous, we DeGeneres. We are Ziggy Stardust hooked to the silver screen. Controversially we are Malcolm X. We are Plato. We are Aristotle. We are RuPaul, god dammit! And yes, we are Woolf."