Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Judge Ditches Dec. 31 Shots Deadline For Vaccine-Refusing Chicago Police
AP: Judge Suspends Deadline For Chicago Cops To Get Vaccinated
A judge on Monday suspended a Dec. 31 deadline for Chicago police officers to be vaccinated against COVID-19 but didn’t interfere with a requirement that they be regularly tested. Disputes over vaccinations should be handled as a labor grievance with an arbitrator, Cook County Judge Raymond Mitchell said. “The effect of this order is to send these parties back to the bargaining table and to promote labor peace by allowing them to pursue” remedies under Illinois law, Mitchell said. (11/1)
In updates from New York City —
NPR: 9,000 New York City Workers Are On Unpaid Leave For Refusing To Get Vaccinated
Thousands of New York municipal workers, including police officers and firefighters, have chosen unpaid leave rather than getting inoculated against COVID-19, as the city's vaccine mandate went into effect. Speaking on Monday, Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, said he expected no disruptions as a result of some 9,000 city employees, or about 6% of the 378,000-strong workforce, getting put on unpaid leave for failing to get a shot. Those workers must show proof of at least one dose of a vaccination to return to work, according to the Oct. 20 order. (Neuman, 11/1)
The Washington Post: Staten Island Anti-Vax Protester Threatens To Burn Schools And Town Halls Over Vaccine Mandate
Hundreds of Staten Island residents holding anti-vaccine signs and waving American flags gathered on Sunday across the street from where New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) was scheduled to speak at a campaign event for local Democrats. The crowd was angry about New York City’s vaccine mandate for municipal workers, which takes full effect on Monday. But one attendee had another worry — that the city, like the state of California, will force children to get the coronavirus vaccine. So he offered an unnerving warning. (Peiser, 11/1)
In updates from Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Missouri, Maryland and Ohio —
AP: State Employees Who Get Vaccinated To Get 5 Paid Days Off
Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration told more than 70,000 state employees on Monday that it is offering five days of paid leave for getting fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by the end of the year, quickly drawing opposition from the state treasurer over the potential cost. The administration told employees that five days of “verification leave” can be used between Dec. 20 and March 31. Employees who don’t use the days by then will be paid for them and an employee who has verified their fully vaccinated status to the administration will automatically receive the days, it said. (11/1)
The Boston Globe: R.I. Reports 94 Percent Of Healthcare Workers Are Vaccinated Against COVID-19
The deadline for Rhode Island’s vaccine mandate for health care workers passed on Sunday, and 94 percent of the state’s health care workers have been fully vaccinated, according to a random audit for vaccination status conducted by the state health department. When Governor Dan McKee announced this summer that there would be a vaccine mandate for all health care workers in the state, he said that any employee who went unvaccinated wouldn’t be allowed in the building. (Gagosz, 11/1)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch: About Three-Fourths Of St. Louis City Workers Get COVID Shots
Slightly more than three-fourths of the city’s civil service employees have gotten COVID-19 shots, the city announced Monday. The 76.4% figure was as of Friday, the revised deadline for St. Louis workers to declare whether they had been vaccinated. Nick Dunne, a spokesman for Mayor Tishaura O. Jones, said the city is “encouraged” by the total vaccinated so far but “it is not 100%. We’ve just got more work to do.” (Schlinkmann, 11/1)
The Baltimore Sun: Maryland Hospital Workers Face Deadlines For COVID Vaccinations; Thousands Could Resign
Hundreds of workers at the University of Maryland Medical System may have run afoul of the mandate by the state’s largest hospital system for them to be vaccinated by Monday. The system reported a high rate of compliance — over 99% — by the middle of last week. But that leaves close to 200 employees and more than 460 contract or irregular workers who will have to leave their jobs if they don’t show proof of their first shot or receive an exemption on medical or religious grounds. (Cohn and Miller, 11/2)
Crain's Cleveland Business: MetroHealth Says It Has 99.9% Employee Compliance With COVID Vax Mandate
MetroHealth back in August said all its employees would have to receive COVID-19 vaccinations or request an exemption by Oct. 30. And now that October is over, the results are in — and the health system came about as close as conceivably possible to meeting the goal. In a news release issued Monday afternoon, Nov. 1, MetroHealth said 99.94% of its 7,700-member workforce is in compliance with the COVID-19 vaccination policy. (Suttell, 11/1)
In news about mask-wearing —
AP: Schools Face Strict Hurdles For Mask Mandates Under New Bill
Tennessee schools will have to jump through even more hoops if they want to implement mask mandates to prevent the spread of COVID-19 under legislation recently approved by the state’s GOP-controlled General Assembly. The strict new rules are part of a sweeping bill Republicans signed off on in the middle of the night over the weekend as they worked to undermine numerous COVID-19 protective measures. (Mattise and Kruesi, 11/1)
AP: A Look At What's In Tennessee's Far-Reaching COVID-19 Bill
Sprawling legislation against COVID-19 prevention measures is awaiting Gov. Bill Lee’s decision on whether sign on to efforts to undercut vaccine requirements, mask mandates and more. Republican lawmakers passed the final bill during the dead of night over the weekend, capping a three-day session called by lawmakers. (11/2)
CNN: Face Masks: Why The World Is Still Arguing About Them, 20 Months Into The Pandemic
At the start of the pandemic, much of the Western world followed a similar playbook for tackling Covid-19.Spikes in transmission were met with lockdowns; international travel was heavily restricted; and though domestic constraints frequently proved controversial, hygiene measures like social distancing, hand-washing and mask-wearing were strongly encouraged -- if not legally mandated. But those days are behind us. Pandemic management now differs widely from country to country -- with the face mask just one example of the world's increasingly fractured approach to Covid-19. (Picheta, 11/2)
