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California to Require All Schoolchildren to Get COVID Shots + More
California to Require All Schoolchildren to Get COVID Shots
California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday announced the nation’s first coronavirus vaccination mandate for schoolchildren, a plan that will have all elementary through high school students get the shots once the vaccine gains final approval from the U.S. government for different age groups.
The government has fully approved the COVID-19 vaccine for those 16 and over but only granted an emergency authorization for anyone 12 to 15. Once federal regulators fully approve the vaccine for that group, the state will require students in seventh through 12th grades to get vaccinated in both public and private schools, Newsom’s office said.
New York City Educators Ask the Supreme Court to Stop the City’s Vaccine Mandate for School Workers
The Washington Post via MSN reported:
A group of New York City educators seeking to overturn the city’s coronavirus vaccine mandate on Thursday asked the Supreme Court to halt the mandate before it goes into effect next week.
New York City’s 148,000 school employees have until Friday to show proof of vaccination or to obtain a religious or medical exemption. If they fail to do so, the city can remove them from the payrolls Monday.
The educators are hoping the high court will block the mandate and hear their challenge. Their petition was directed to Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who is responsible for emergency petitions from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit.
New York Mandates Vaccines for Health Workers – How Will It Play Out?
When New York’s vaccine mandate went into effect this week, administrators put one-fifth of the corporation’s long-term care facility staff on unpaid leave — workers who have risked their jobs rather than get vaccinated. The resulting staff shortage has caused a “cascading effect” through the entire system.
“That’s the biggest challenge, is on the nursing home side,” said Quatroche. “The lack of staffing has created closure of units and inability to discharge individuals out of the hospital, which backs up the hospital and blocks beds for individuals who need beds in the emergency room.”
The result of these factors in Erie county — difficulty hiring, vaccine hesitancy and a state requirement — presents just one example of the forces hospitals across the country will face as more state vaccine mandates from California to Maine go into effect.
Portpass App May Have Exposed Hundreds of Thousands of Users’ Personal Data
Private proof-of-vaccination app Portpass exposed personal information, including the driver’s licenses, of what could be as many as hundreds of thousands of users by leaving its website unsecured. The information was not encrypted and could be viewed in plain text.
Earlier in the day, the Calgary-based company’s CEO Zakir Hussein had denied the app had verification or security issues and accused those who raised concerns about it of breaking the law.
Why Are Highly Vaxxed Colleges Implementing Strict COVID Policies? — These Measures Have Clear Downsides and Little Proven Value
Vaccinated college students at many elite schools are the subject of an ongoing experiment — a screening study, in fact. Every week, or twice a week, depending on the school, they are asked to take a test for SARS-CoV-2. If positive, they have to quarantine, and if enough kids test positive, the entire school or campus has an escalation of restrictions.
Of course, as an expert on evidence-based medicine, the first argument I will make is there is no evidence that this policy — asymptomatic screening and strict mandates — slows the spread of the virus, or more importantly, keeps students, faculty, and staff from feeling sick. Showing that would require a cluster randomized trial. But apart from saying the evidence is lacking, the policy raises three other questions.
London Slips Into Technocracy, Becomes Blueprint For The World
For better or worse, London has long been considered one of the world’s great cities. It has produced many of the world’s great artists, writers, and thinkers.
Conversely, London is also known as a place where freedom and privacy are nearly extinct. It is one of the world’s most surveilled cities, ranking second globally in CCTV cameras per square (1,138) and third in CCTV cameras per person (73 per 1,000). The city’s police have recently purchased facial recognition technology in order to process historic images from these CCTV cameras as well as social media platforms and other sources. This is in addition to the Live Facial Recognition (LFR) technology already deployed in the city.
Nurse Explains Why She Refuses to Get COVID Vaccine Despite Mandate
CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta talks with nurse Andrea Babinski, who has not been vaccinated for COVID-19 despite a mandate from her employer and the possibility she may lose her job for refusing to get the shot.
Being a nurse means everything to Andrea Babinski, but she is willing to risk it all — the connections to colleagues she likes, the patients she cares for, not to mention the steady paycheck — for a simple belief.
Babinski believes that the decision of whether she should get vaccinated against COVID-19 should be a personal medical choice. So far, she has chosen not to be vaccinated.
Penalty for the Unvaccinated?
While this year’s open-enrollment period won’t have a “yes or no” box to verify your vaccination status (like the “Are you a smoker?” question that’s typically asked), it could become a reality for the 2023 open-enrollment season. And some employers are already penalizing unvaccinated employees.
In late August, Delta, one of the largest global airlines, announced that it will require unvaccinated employees to pay a $200 monthly health insurance surcharge. Delta CEO Ed Bastian said in a memo to employees that the surcharge was designed to address “the financial risk the decision to not vaccinate is creating for our company.”
Insurers can’t deny you coverage because you had (or have) COVID-19, but surcharges are legal as long as you are offered an alternative to paying the surcharge. For smokers, the alternative is to complete a program that helps you kick the habit. In the case of COVID-19, the alternative would be to get vaccinated.
Are AI Ethics Teams Doomed to Be a Facade? Women Who Pioneered Them Weigh In
The concept of “ethical AI” hardly existed just a few years ago, but times have changed. After countless discoveries of AI systems causing real-world harm and a slew of professionals ringing the alarm, tech companies now know that all eyes — from customers to regulators — are on their AI. They also know this is something they need to have an answer for. That answer, in many cases, has been to establish in-house AI ethics teams.
“I do think that skepticism is very much warranted for any ‘ethics’ thing that comes out of corporations,” Gebru told VentureBeat, adding that it “serves as PR [to] make them look good.”
Should Troops Who Refuse the COVID Vaccine Be Dishonorably Discharged?
Should members of the military who refuse to get the COVID-19 vaccine risk being dishonorably discharged? Some people think it’s fair, while others are working to prevent it.
Republican Sens. James Lankford, Tommy Tubberville, Ted Cruz and Roger Marshall are fighting to prevent active service members who refuse the vaccine from being dishonorably discharged.
“If they’re giving a dishonorable discharge, then that soldier is going to lose their benefits (and) are going to have problems getting a job in the future; they’ll lose their benefits of getting a free education as well as healthcare,” Marshall said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
YouTube Misinformation Policy Update: Gov. Desantis’ Office Promises to Fight Censorship
YouTube announced an expansion to their community guidelines on Wednesday, focused on what the company called harmful misinformation relating to vaccines and other health-related topics. In response to YouTube’s updated content policies, Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office promised to oppose censorship and to continue fighting in defense of a recent law that is aimed at preventing deplatforming on social media sites.
The new YouTube guidelines include a three-strike content and account takedown policy with a 90-day timeline. For accounts that promote content directly in opposition to the new guidelines, an instant ban is also a possibility, according to YouTube’s new rules.
Florida’s SB 7072, the so-called Big Tech crackdown law, gives state officials and private citizens options to take social media companies to court over removal of their accounts from online communities, especially if the individual is currently running for public office. It was signed into law in May.
Pilots Warn Vaccine Mandate Could Cause Holiday Travel Chaos + More
Pilots Warn Vaccine Mandate Could Cause Holiday Travel Chaos
The unions representing American and Southwest airlines pilots are asking lawmakers and the White House for an exemption or an alternative to the federal mandate requiring companies with more than 100 people to get vaccinated, according to ABC News.
Roughly 30% of American Airlines pilots are not vaccinated, according to the Allied Pilots Association, the union representing American’s 14,000 pilots. Southwest’s pilot union could not say how many of its members were unvaccinated.
Hundreds of Hospital Staffers Fired or Suspended for Refusing COVID Vaccine Mandate
Hundreds of healthcare workers across the country are being fired or suspended in droves for not complying with COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
President Joe Biden announced earlier this month a vaccine mandate for health care facilities that receive Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement, impacting some 17 million healthcare workers in the nation.
States including New York, California, Rhode Island and Connecticut also set vaccine mandates for health care workers that take effect this week.
AT&T to Require Vaccines for 90,000 of Its Union Workers
AT&T has become one of the largest employers in the U.S. to mandate vaccines for a significant number of frontline workers.
The telecom company said Wednesday that its employees in the Communications Workers of America union will be required to be fully vaccinated by Feb. 1, “unless they get an approved job accommodation.”
Facebook Exec Defends Policies Toward Teens on Instagram
Facing outrage over its handling of internal research on harm to teens from Instagram, a Facebook executive is telling Congress that the company is working to protect young people on its platforms. And she disputes the way a recent newspaper story describes what the research shows. “We have put in place multiple protections to create safe and age-appropriate experiences for people between the ages of 13 and 17,” Antigone Davis, Facebook’s head of global safety, said in written testimony Thursday for a Senate Commerce subcommittee.
The revelations in a report by The Wall Street Journal, based on internal research leaked by a whistleblower at Facebook, have set off a wave of anger from lawmakers, critics of Big Tech, child-development experts and parents. The outcry prompted Facebook to put on hold its work on a kids’ version of Instagram, which the company says is meant mainly for tweens aged 10 to 12. But it’s just a pause.
Plan to Fast-Track Exemptions to COVID Vaccine Mandates Stalls
The bill, HB435, allows students and employees to opt out of getting the COVID-19 vaccine, even if it’s required at school or work.
The measure was voted out of committee Tuesday evening after one hearing and was set for a full House vote Wednesday. But House Speaker Bob Cupp (R-Lima) says members want to explore a few more issues.
U.S. Troops Go to Court Seeking Vaccine Exemption for Those Who’ve Had COVID
Two U.S. service members who have recovered from COVID-19 are asking a federal judge to put an immediate stop to the Defense Department’s mandatory COVID-19 vaccine order.
Army Staff Sgt. Daniel Robert and Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Hollie Mulvihill filed a suit Aug. 17 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado seeking an exception to the order for military members who have recovered from the illness.
University of Colorado Faces COVID Religious Exemption Suit
A pediatrician and a medical student at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus are challenging denials of their requests for religious exemptions from the school’s COVID vaccination mandate, arguing in a lawsuit filed Wednesday that administrators are judging the “veracity” of personal religious beliefs in violation of the First Amendment.
The lawsuit argues that the medical school is arbitrarily granting religious exemptions to its vaccine requirement for all staff and students. It contends the university is approving requests that are based on organized religious beliefs that oppose vaccinations, while subjecting requests based on personal religious beliefs to “intrusive religious inquisition to test the veracity of students’ and employees’ asserted religious beliefs.”
Military Leaders Saw Pandemic as Unique Opportunity to Test Propaganda Techniques on Canadians, Forces Report Says
Canadian military leaders saw the pandemic as a unique opportunity to test out propaganda techniques on an unsuspecting public, a newly released Canadian Forces report concludes.
The plan devised by the Canadian Joint Operations Command, also known as CJOC, relied on propaganda techniques similar to those employed during the Afghanistan war. The campaign called for “shaping” and “exploiting” information. CJOC claimed the information operations scheme was needed to head off civil disobedience by Canadians during the coronavirus pandemic and to bolster government messages about the pandemic.
Nurses, Doctor Challenge RI Vaccine Mandate in Court. Here Are Their Arguments.
The Providence Journal reported:
The impassioned debate over the state’s mandate that healthcare workers get the COVID vaccine or face the consequences hit federal court Wednesday, with four medical professionals challenging the regulation based on its failure to provide exemptions on religious grounds.
Joseph S. Larisa Jr. argued in a virtual hearing before U.S. District Court Judge Mary S. McElroy that the mandate violated four anonymous healthcare workers’ Constitutional rights by prohibiting their employers from considering exempting them from being inoculated based on their “sincerely held religious beliefs.”
Assistant Attorney General Michael W. Field countered that there is nothing in the mandate that prevents employers from considering exemptions based on religious beliefs, as required by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In fact, he said, that is precisely what they should do.
Los Alamos National Laboratory Workers Sue Over Vaccine Mandate
Santa Fe New Mexican reported:
Los Alamos National Laboratory has been on the forefront of vaccine research during the coronavirus pandemic, but three dozen employees don’t feel that gives the lab the authority to compel them to get inoculated and are suing to block the vaccine mandate.
The employees are challenging an order the lab’s primary contractor, Triad National Security LLC, imposed in August requiring all eligible workers to be immunized or else face possible firing.
They contend the order infringes on their rights and, in some cases, threatens to exacerbate medical problems.
YouTube Bans Vaccine Misinformation + More
YouTube Bans Vaccine Misinformation
In a new attempt to stem the flow of anti-vaccine misinformation, YouTube said Wednesday that it won’t allow videos that claim vaccines approved by health authorities are dangerous or don’t work. The platform is also banning prominent anti-vaccine accounts, including Joseph Mercola’s channel and the Robert F. Kennedy Jr.-linked Children’s Defense Fund.
YouTube pulled ads from anti-vaccination content in 2019, and said in October 2020 that it would remove videos that pushed misinformation around COVID-19 vaccines. The new policy expands to block misinformation around other vaccines, including the flu shot, the HPV vaccine, and the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. Videos that inaccurately claim that the MMR vaccine causes autism or that the flu shot causes infertility, for example, will not be allowed under the new policy.
Vatican Orders All Employees to Get Vaccine or Submit to Testing
The Vatican City State said Tuesday that it will require all employees to provide proof of vaccination or documentation of a recent negative COVID test, the Washington Post reports.
Why it matters: Pope Francis, who was vaccinated in January, has campaigned for people to get the shots, calling it a moral duty. Some Catholics, however, have argued for exemptions on religious grounds.
Employees without proper documentation will be considered “unjustly absent” and receive no salary, per the Post. The Vatican is not allowing exemptions at the moment, though the Secretariat of State and the city-state’s health department will review the issue.
As Deadlines Approach, Thousands of L.A. School Employees, Students Remain Unvaccinated
High-stakes COVID-19 vaccine mandate deadlines are fast approaching in the Los Angeles Unified School District and employees who refuse the inoculations face losing their jobs while unvaccinated students would ultimately be forced off campus into an online program.
While the vast majority of students and teachers are expected to comply — and possibly even feel reassured by the mandate — large numbers in the nation’s second-largest school district have so far resisted the requirement. Currently, about 1 in 5 district employees, about 12,000 workers, have not begun their immunization, according to information provided at Tuesday’s Board of Education meeting. A loss of that magnitude would add more disruption to school operations, especially as the district is struggling to fill more than 2,000 vacancies.
Ford Asks U.S. Salaried Employees to Disclose COVID Vaccination Status
Ford Motor Co (F.N) on Tuesday became the second Detroit automaker to ask U.S. salaried employees to reveal their vaccination status against COVID-19 in a bid to comply with wider federal guidelines.
Ford said salaried employees were required to submit their vaccination status against COVID-19 by Oct. 8 but the process was voluntary for its hourly employees represented by the United Auto Workers (UAW) union.
Employer Vaccine Mandates Convert Some Workers, but Not All
Businesses that have announced vaccine mandates say some workers who had been on the fence have since gotten inoculated against COVID-19. But many holdouts remain — a likely sign of what is to come once a federal mandate goes into effect.
Even before President Joe Biden’s Sept. 9 announcement that companies with more than 100 workers would have to require vaccinations, dozens of companies, including Amtrak, Microsoft, United Airlines and Disney issued ultimatums to most workers. And smaller companies in New York, San Francisco and New Orleans have been required to implement mandates for customers and workers.
Some mandates seem to have converted hesitant workers, but employers are still dealing with holdouts. United said late Tuesday it will begin terminating 593 employees over the next few days for refusing to get vaccinated. Other companies are offering alternatives, including weekly testing or working remotely or away from other staff.
Factbox: COVID and the U.S. Courts: Challenges to Vaccine Requirements
U.S. employers, universities and local governments are increasingly putting COVID-19 vaccine mandates in place to contain outbreaks of the disease as infection rates remain high.
Workers who fear losing their jobs for refusing the shots are turning to the courts. The following are some of the key cases.
Mask and Vaccine Mandates Have Left Us Divided, but Everyone Can Agree on Helping the Kids
The Washington Post via MSN reported:
When it comes to vaccine mandates, public discussions can quickly turn to heated arguments, leaving no hope of finding common ground. But an online petition to rescind a vaccine mandate for teachers, followed by a rebuttal from a parent, provided an exchange that strangely made common ground seem possible.
The petition was posted on the website Change.org two weeks ago by Freedom2Choose, a group that says it includes “a substantial number” of Montgomery County Public Schools teachers and staff who oppose the mandate. Nearly 500 people had signed the petition as of Tuesday afternoon.
It listed six reasons for calling the county’s teacher vaccine mandate unjustified.
These High School Students Are Fighting for Ethical AI
It’s been a busy year for Encode Justice, an international group of grassroots activists pushing for ethical uses of artificial intelligence. There have been legislators to lobby, online seminars to hold, and meetings to attend, all in hopes of educating others about the harms of facial-recognition technology.
It would be a lot for any activist group to fit into the workday; most of the team behind Encode Justice have had to cram it all in around high school.
It may be the only youth activist group focused squarely on pointing out the dangers — both real and potential — of AI-based applications such as facial-recognition software and deepfakes. “We’re fighting for a future in which technology can be used to uplift, and not to oppress,” Revanur told CNN Business.
As Privacy Issues Worsen, Congress Looks to the FTC
Lawmakers are preparing to hold the first in a series of data privacy hearings on Wednesday in a fresh effort to bolster consumer data protections on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Google.
On Wednesday, the Senate Commerce Committee plans to discuss the creation of a new privacy bureau at the FTC and “the need for a comprehensive federal privacy law.” It’s an uncomfortable dodge since Congress has thus far been unable to pass any such privacy law. But with states enacting their own privacy framework, there’s more pressure than ever for some part of the federal government to take action.
Russia Threatens to Block YouTube as Confrontation With Google Escalates
Russia’s state censor has threatened to block YouTube in the country in retaliation for the Google-owned video platform deleting two German-language channels belonging to the Kremlin-funded broadcaster RT for allegedly publishing misinformation around COVID-19.
The Russian censor, Roskomnadzor, sent a letter to Google warning that if it did not swiftly restore the two RT YouTube channels, then it faced a complete or partial block, according to Russian state news agencies that published parts of the letter Wednesday.
Employees Sue United Airlines Over COVID Vaccine Mandate + More
Employees Sue United Airlines Over COVID Vaccine Mandate
United Airlines is facing two separate lawsuits over its COVID-19 vaccine mandate. One of the two lawsuits was filed in the U.S. District Court in Fort Worth, Texas. In that suit, the employee alleges that their religious exemption was not accommodated.
Last week, before the mandate went into effect, six employees asked a federal judge to block the vaccination requirement.
Judges Let NYC Schools Proceed With Vax Mandate for Educators; Goes Into Effect Oct. 4
Hours before New York City’s vaccination mandate for Department of Education employees was scheduled to begin, federal judges ruled in the city’s favor and dissolved the temporary block that kept the city’s order on ice.
A three-judge panel had been scheduled to hear the case Wednesday, almost a week after the court granted a temporary injunction from a lone judge on Friday. Instead, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan issued its ruling Monday evening, in a move that shocked many, dissolving Friday’s injunction and denying the original motion.
83,000 Hospital Workers Could Be Fired as New York COVID Vaccine Mandate Goes Into Effect
New York’s state mandate ordering healthcare workers to get the COVID vaccine went into effect Monday at midnight.
Some hospital networks including Northwell Health have already fired more than two dozen healthcare workers. Others will have 30 days to get a COVID vaccine or lose their jobs. Officials say 16% of the state’s hospital workers are not fully vaccinated, which means more than 83,000 are at risk of termination.
Sixty Facebook Groups Focused on Ivermectin Discussion: Report
At least 60 public and private Facebook groups were focused on discussing ivermectin to treat COVID-19, according to left-leaning watchdog Media Matters for America, The New York Times reported on Tuesday. Of the groups, 25 were shut down after Media Matters flagged them to Facebook. The remaining groups, however, had nearly 70,000 members, the newspaper reports.
Aaron Simpson, a spokesperson for Facebook, told the Times that the platform removes content that “attempts to buy, sell or donate for ivermectin.”
N.C. Hospital System Fires About 175 Workers in One of the Largest-Ever Mass Terminations Due to a Vaccine Mandate
The Washington Post via MSN reported:
A North Carolina-based hospital system announced Monday that roughly 175 unvaccinated employees were fired for failing to comply with the organization’s mandatory coronavirus vaccination policy, the latest in a series of healthcare dismissals over coronavirus immunization.
Novant Health said last week that 375 unvaccinated workers — across 15 hospitals and 800 clinics — had been suspended for not getting immunized. Unvaccinated employees were given five days to comply.
‘The Big Delete:’ Inside Facebook’s Crackdown in Germany
Days before Germany’s federal elections, Facebook took what it called an unprecedented step: the removal of a series of accounts that worked together to spread COVID-19 misinformation and encourage violent responses to COVID restrictions.
In the case of the German network, the nearly 150 accounts, pages and groups were linked to the so-called Querdenken movement, a loose coalition that has protested lockdown measures in Germany and includes vaccine and mask opponents, conspiracy theorists and some far-right extremists.
The Pandemic Is Testing the Limits of Face Recognition
MIT Technology Review reported:
Law enforcement and private businesses have used face recognition for years, but use of the technology in distributing government aid has expanded rapidly during the pandemic. States and federal agencies have turned to face recognition as a contactless, automated way of verifying the identity of people applying for unemployment and other public benefits.
Experts and activists worry that failures of this technology could prevent people from getting benefits they desperately need—and that it could be even more dangerous if it works as designed.
Nursing Students Drop Out to Escape Vaccine Mandate
As the state prepares to hire a recruiting firm to bring desperately needed healthcare workers to New Hampshire, some nursing students with safety concerns about the COVID-19 vaccine are leaving their nursing programs over vaccine mandates. A new state law prohibits most of their colleges from requiring a COVID-19 vaccine, but their clinical sites can — and most will have to under the new Biden administration vaccine mandate for health care settings.
“A critical healthcare workforce shortage is on the horizon in New Hampshire unless these healthcare organizations drop their rigid policies,” said Rep. Leah Cushman, a Weare, N.H., Republican who has proposed legislation that would require hospitals and other healthcare settings to accept exemption requests by clinical students. (The law requires them to consider medical and religious exemption requests, but Cushman said she’s been told they are being rejected without review.) “We can’t afford to stop new nurses from entering the field.”
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey Blasts Facebook’s Removal of Her Campaign Page: ‘Big Tech Has Gotten Out of Hand’
Republican Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey took a hardline approach to Big Tech this week, blasting Facebook over the temporary removal of her gubernatorial campaign page and accusing it of working alongside President Joe Biden’s administration to stop conservatives from speaking out on things like opposition to federal coronavirus vaccine mandates.
Speaking with Fox News Digital, Ivey reiterated she strongly supported Alabamians taking the vaccine, but continued to reject any attempts by the federal government to mandate vaccinations. She blamed her opposition to those mandates as the reason for Facebook taking action against her page – Facebook has called it a mistake – and declared that “Big Tech has gotten out of hand” in its attitude towards conservatives.
There Cannot Be Equity on Campus With Self-Censorship
The American Conservative reported:
A recent report from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) on the state of free speech in higher education captures over 37,000 voices of currently-enrolled students at 159 colleges, revealing that free speech is not alive and well on our nation’s college and university campuses. The data paint a vivid and frightening picture of life on campus: Some students are more free to speak than others, and there is remarkable bias when it comes to partisanship. Students on the right of the political spectrum keep silent at considerably higher rates than those on the left, while factors like race and socioeconomic status do not really impact one’s ability to speak.
The FIRE report shows that censorship on campuses is quite high. More than half, 53 percent of students, report that they self-censor occasionally or more often. More than a fifth, 21 percent, of students say they silence themselves fairly or very often for fear of how students, a professor, or their school’s administration might respond. This is a horrifying finding, as colleges and universities are the spaces where dialogue and discourse should flow freely and ideas should be debated and challenged.
Sen. Mike Lee Introduces Bills to Stop Federal Vaccine Mandates
Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) is working to stop the federal government from imposing COVID-19 vaccinations on federal workers and businesses with more than 100 employees. On September 23, Lee introduced nine bills into the senate as a response to President Biden’s vaccination mandates for federal employees and contractors.
The president is also directing the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to require businesses with more than 100 employees to require vaccinations or weekly testing for those who are unvaccinated.
Judge Blocks R.I. Firefighters Union’s Challenge of COVID Vaccine Mandate
A Rhode Island Superior Court judge is blocking local firefighters’ attempts to challenge the state health department’s mandate for all healthcare workers, including EMTs, to be vaccinated by Oct. 1 or risk losing their jobs and licenses.
The Rhode Island Association of Firefighters had requested an injunction that would have halted enforcement, arguing that the vaccine mandate violates the firefighters’ collective bargaining agreements, which are protected by the Firefighters’ Arbitration Act, a state law that requires negotiation of employment terms and conditions.
Judge Melissa E. Darigan said the court did not think the vaccine mandate would impose a new working condition.