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Bay Area Reinstates COVID Mask Orders in Healthcare Settings. Will L.A. Follow?
Most San Francisco Bay Area counties are reinstituting mask requirements among workers in healthcare settings, timed to coincide with the arrival of the annual respiratory illness season and an expected late-year resurgence of COVID-19.
To this point, however, Los Angeles County has not taken that same step. Rather, the county Department of Public Health issued a health order in September requiring healthcare workers to either get both the flu and updated COVID-19 vaccines or mask up when working in patient care areas.
COVID-19 conditions would have to substantially worsen for L.A. County to consider bringing back a more widespread mask mandate in healthcare settings, according to county health officer Dr. Muntu Davis.
When asked at a Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday why L.A. County was not adopting universal masking policies in healthcare settings, Davis noted that COVID levels are still low, and both health officials and hospitals want to encourage healthcare workers to get their updated COVID-19 vaccination this autumn.
DC Students Will No Longer Need to Vaccinate Against Coronavirus
The DC Council voted Tuesday to repeal its coronavirus vaccine mandate for the city’s schoolchildren, a measure that was controversial when it passed in 2021 and was never enforced.
The vote ends a long-running debate over whether DC should require students over the age of 12 to get vaccinated against the coronavirus as a condition for attendance. Lawmakers added the vaccine to the city’s list of required immunizations in hopes of curbing the virus in schools, but thousands of families failed to meet deadlines.
Members reversed the measure unanimously and without any debate. Councilmember Christina Henderson (I-At Large), who co-introduced the law that mandated the vaccine, noted that no child had been excluded from school this year because the measure was a “requirement that hasn’t been in place” for this school year.
The vaccine requirement was initially supposed to go into effect at the beginning of the 2022-2023 school year. The city was also preparing to impose a long-standing — but rarely enforced — law that requires students to get routine shots against illnesses such as measles, polio and whooping cough.
But families were slow to get their children immunized against the coronavirus. The city hosted dozens of pop-up vaccine booths and mobile health clinics. It even enticed students with college scholarships and gift cards.
U.S. Consumer Watchdog Proposes Rules for Big Tech Payments, Digital Wallets
The top U.S. consumer financial watchdog on Tuesday proposed to regulate tech giants‘ digital payments and smartphone wallet services, saying they rival traditional payment methods in scale and scope but lack consumer safeguards.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) proposal would subject companies like Alphabet (GOOGL.O), Apple (AAPL.O), PayPal (PYPL.O) and Block’s CashApp (SQ.N) to bank-like supervision, with CFPB examiners inspecting their privacy protections, executives’ conduct and compliance with laws barring unfair and deceptive practices.
If finalized, the proposal would cover about 17 companies that together send more than 13 billion payments annually, according to a CFPB official. The agency declined to name the other platforms that would be covered beyond GooglePay, ApplePay, PayPal and CashApp.
The proposal marks a long-anticipated and ambitious move by CFPB Director Rohit Chopra to assert the agency’s full authority over Big Tech, a sector he has frequently criticized for privacy and competition issues.
In a speech last month, Chopra said CFPB research had found tech giants collected vast amounts of consumer payment data with few limits, scant transparency and confusing corporate policies, putting consumers at risk of Chinese-style surveillance by the companies.
Exclusive Interview: Amazon Unveils One Medical Benefit for Prime Members
Amazon (AMZN) has built a vast empire, from e-commerce and streaming to groceries and electronics, off of its network of Prime shoppers. It’s betting that its next big push, healthcare, will cement the company’s place as an integral part of consumers’ lives.
On Wednesday, the tech giant unveiled a new Prime benefit — a discounted One Medical membership. It’s the latest move in offering more health services to Prime members, as it looks to further its position in the entrenched industry.
Prime members will have access to One Medical’s on-demand virtual care and in-person primary care appointments for $9 a month, or $99 annually, and be able to add family members for $66 each annually. The family rate represents a 67% discount from the current rate.
Amazon Dedicates Team to Train Ambitious AI Model Codenamed ‘Olympus’ — Sources
Amazon (AMZN.O) is investing millions in training an ambitious large language model (LLMs), hoping it could rival top models from OpenAI and Alphabet (GOOGL.O), two people familiar with the matter told Reuters.
The model, codenamed “Olympus,” has 2 trillion parameters, the people said, which could make it one of the largest models being trained. OpenAI’s GPT-4 model, one of the best models available, is reported to have one trillion parameters.
The people spoke on condition of anonymity because the details of the project were not yet public. Amazon declined to comment. The Information reported on the project name on Tuesday.
The team is spearheaded by Rohit Prasad, former head of Alexa, who now reports directly to CEO Andy Jassy. As head scientist of artificial general intelligence (AGI) at Amazon, Prasad brought in researchers who had been working on Alexa AI and the Amazon science team to work on training models, uniting AI efforts across the company with dedicated resources.
‘Vaccine Passports’ Effective in Boosting COVID Vaccine Uptake: Study
A report in the journal Health Affairs has found that proof-of-vaccine mandates may be an effective way to increase vaccination uptake across certain age groups, after studying the policy enforced during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In fall 2021, proof of COVID-19 vaccination was mandated for all non-essential businesses and venues across 10 Canadian provinces.
A group of researchers said the announcement increased first-dose uptake by 290,168 people or 17.5%, but the numbers stopped climbing within six weeks.
“These behavioral changes were short-lived,” the study read. “Uptake returned to preannouncement levels — or lower — in all age groups within six weeks, despite mandates remaining in place for at least four months.” The study said the decline happened early and was more prevalent among people ages 12 to 17.
AI Isn’t Dangerous —Yet
AI is remarkable. It can sift through terabytes of data in seconds, perform tasks at scale, and improve through learning algorithms. It can analyze faster and more comprehensively than any human. But it’s not a matter of humans vs. machines; it’s humans and machines. They are, in essence, extensions of our minds; tools that can help us realize visions that are larger than ourselves.
However, these tools don’t have our human essence. They don’t understand beauty, they can’t contemplate morality, and they’ll never experience love. As AI evolves, we might be tempted to delegate more to these entities — but that’s dangerous territory if we neglect to recognize that they don’t share our value systems. Without human ethics and a framework of responsibility, AI isn’t a technological marvel; it’s a loaded gun.
It’s time for action, and we need to move fast. We simply don’t have time to wait to regulate AI. We must set ethical boundaries now to ensure AI serves humanity, not vice versa. Governance isn’t a roadblock to innovation; it’s the framework that ensures innovation serves us all.
