Miss a day, miss a lot. Subscribe to The Defender's Top News of the Day. It's free.
Teachers Should Be Required to Get COVID Vaccines, Fauci Says
Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, said state and local governments should require teachers to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
As back-to-school season approaches and the delta variant surges across the U.S., Fauci acknowledged that his position might anger some people who’ve resisted vaccine mandates for teachers.
“Yeah I’m going to upset some people on this, but I think we should,” he said Tuesday in an interview with MSNBC. “This is very serious business. You would wish that people would see why it’s so important to get vaccinated.”
Companies Now Deducting $50 From Unvaccinated Workers’ Monthly Paychecks: Consultancy Firm
Employers are beginning to tack on a special surcharge of $20 to $50 a month to their unvaccinated workers, according to one of the nation’s largest health benefits consultancies.
To date, employers have offered gift cards, a day off from work, cash and other financial incentives to convince their workers to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
But the carrot approach is about to be joined by a stick that could cost employees up to $50 a month, according to Mercer, the large employee benefits consultancy that works with thousands of employers around the world.
‘Unconscionable’: Trump Surgeon General Slams States Banning Mask Mandates In Schools
Dr. Jerome Adams, the U.S. Surgeon General under former President Trump, on Tuesday joined the growing chorus of public health officials criticizing Republican-led states that have enacted bans prohibiting school districts from imposing their own mask mandates, even as some — including Florida and Texas — battle surges in COVID-19 hospitalizations including among children.
Fake COVID-19 Vaccine Cards Online Worry College Officials
The Associated Press reported:
As the delta variant of the coronavirus sweeps across the United States, a growing number of colleges and universities are requiring proof of COVID-19 vaccination for students to attend in-person classes. But the new mandate has opened the door for those opposed to getting the vaccine to cheat the system, according to interviews with students, education and law enforcement officials.
Across the internet, a cottage industry has sprung up to accommodate people who say they won’t get vaccinated for either personal or religious reasons.
An Instagram account with the username “vaccinationcards” sells laminated COVID-19 vaccination cards for $25 each. A user on the encrypted messaging app, Telegram, offers “COVID-19 Vaccine Cards Certificates,” for as much as $200 apiece.
Apple Wants To Check Your Phone for Child Abuse Images — What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Privacy. That’s (no longer) iPhone.
Apple, which has spent big bucks on ad campaigns boasting about how much it values its users privacy, is about to start poking through all your text messages and photos. Don’t worry, the tech company has assured everyone, the prying is for purely benevolent purposes. On Thursday Apple announced a new set of “protection for children” features that will look through U.S. iPhones for images of child abuse.
One of these features is a tool called neuralMatch, which will scan photo libraries to see if they contain anything that matches a database of known child abuse imagery. Another feature, which parents can enable or disable, scans iMessage images sent or received by accounts that belong to a minor. It will then notify the parents when a child receives sexually explicit imagery.
With Liberty and Privacy for Some: Widening Inequality on the Digital Frontier
Apple’s leaders announced their plans for the App Tracking Transparency (ATT) update in 2020. In short, iOS users can refuse an app’s ability to track their activity on other apps and websites. The ATT update has led to a sweeping three-quarters of iOS users opting out of cross-app tracking.
With less data available to advertisers looking to develop individual profiles for targeted advertising, targeted ads for iOS users look less effective and appealing to ad agencies. As a result, new findings show that advertisers are spending one-third less in advertising spending on iOS devices.
