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Washington, D.C. Becomes First Major City to Impose Vaccine Mandate on Students
Washington, D.C. has imposed a vaccine requirement for indoor activities that will also apply to all K-12 students, including those who attend charter, private and parochial schools.
Effective Jan. 15, the order requires that patrons aged 12 and over present proof of at least one dose to enter certain businesses including restaurants, bars, and nightclubs, indoor exercise and recreational establishments, indoor cultural and entertainment facilities, and indoor event and meeting establishments. By Feb. 15, people aged 12 and up must be fully vaccinated to enter these businesses.
Nested in the directive is also a sweeping vaccine requirement for students, who must receive both shots, if they’re eligible, in order to attend school starting March 1, 2022.
D.C. is the first city to require vaccination for students, ahead of even New York City which has been known to be more aggressive with its COVID-19 restrictions.
California to Require Booster Shots for Healthcare Workers
California will require healthcare workers to get a booster shot of the coronavirus vaccine, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Tuesday, pledging to make sure hospitals are prepared as a new version of the disease begins to spread throughout the state.
California already requires healthcare workers to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, a directive that took effect in September and has since led to the firing or suspension of thousands of people. Now it will join New Mexico as at least the second state to require booster shots for healthcare workers.
Chicago to Require Vax Proof Starting in January for Restaurants, Bars, Other Indoor Venues
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced Tuesday Chicagoans looking to enter indoor venues serving food and drinks will need to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination starting Jan. 3.
In addition to restaurants, bars, sports stadiums and concert venues, the rules will also apply to gyms. The new measures will not affect grocery stores, schools, office buildings, apartment buildings or religious institutions.
Employees at affected venues who don’t want the vaccine will have the option to do weekly COVID-19 tests, but this does not extend to customers.
Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group to Require Boosters for Workers, Diners
Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group (USGH) said Wednesday it will begin requiring customers to show proof of having received a COVID booster shot in order to dine indoors at its restaurants, starting in the new year.
Employees and new hires must also receive a booster shot, effective immediately, Meyer announced on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
USGH has a large presence in New York City. Its restaurants include Gramercy Tavern, Manhatta and Union Square Cafe. It also operates Anchovy Social in Washington, D.C.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not yet changed its definition on what it means to be fully vaccinated against COVID.
China Puts Entire City of 13 Million Under Lockdown Amid COVID Surge
Health officials in northwestern China have ordered 13 million residents into another full lockdown amid a surge in the Delta variant of COVID.
A notice by the Xi’an city government said the stay-at-home order would come into effect at midnight local time on Thursday. The mandatory quarantine period is indefinite, with an end date to be announced at a later time, according to the statement.
All non-essential businesses including public transport will be suspended in Xi’an. The city’s 13 million residents will be compelled to remain at home, and each household will be permitted to send one person out for essential shopping every two days, said the government announcement.
According to local media reports, some 3,574 schools will pause in-person classes and switch to online learning.
Supreme Court Denies Challenge to New Mexico’s Vaccine Mandate
The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected, without comment, a bid to challenge New Mexico’s vaccine mandate for workers in hospitals, nursing homes and prisons, among other settings.
The court has repeatedly denied bids to block states’ vaccine mandates, including in New York and Maine. The New Mexico requirement, which includes medical and religious exemptions, took effect in August.
Two women, including a former nurse who was fired after refusing to get the vaccine, argued in their petition that the mandate violates their “constitutional rights to bodily integrity and to engage in one’s chosen profession.”
Amazon Reinstates Mask Mandates Across All of Its Warehouses
Workers in Amazon‘s considerable warehousing operations will be required to wear masks, again. The shift comes as U.S. cases have spiked again due to the highly-transmissible Omicron variant, and will apply to all “operations facilities, FCs [fulfillment centers], sort centers, and delivery stations,” effective today, according to an email shared with Engadget.
Amazon made temperature checks and masking a requirement in April of last year. It allowed individuals who were 14 or more days past their final dose of the vaccine to unmask in May. That decision was seen, at least by some workers, as premature.
Amazon does not have the sunniest track record where COVID precautions are concerned. Workers at several locations raised concerns that they were not being informed when positive case were discovered at their facilities. In California, the company was fined $500,000 for “concealing” cases from workers.
Hundreds of Business Owners Protest COVID Restrictions, Demand More Government Support
Hundreds of small business owners across South Korea took to the streets of Seoul Wednesday to protest recently re-enacted strict COVID-19 restrictions that they claim hurt their establishments.
No clashes with police or other forms of violence were reported at the event. However, the protesters were critical of the distancing measures, which include a 9 p.m. business curfew and bans on gatherings of more than four people. Due to the measures, business owners fear that their already-low profits will drop even further.
Worsening tensions is the fact that the South Korean government allegedly has not followed through with their compensation plans.
Facebook Papers: How the 2021 Leak Could Haunt Meta in 2022
This year was a wild ride for the world’s largest tech companies, from Microsoft (MSFT) and Google (GOOG, GOOGL) reaching a $2 trillion market cap to the chip shortage taking a bite out of Apple’s (AAPL) revenue.
But ex-Facebook (FB) employee Frances Haugen spearheaded the year’s biggest tech story: the leak of thousands of internal documents dubbed The Facebook Papers. The trove laid bare Facebook-parent Meta’s inability to police its platform, risking public safety in the U.S. and abroad.
It also showed the negative impacts of Meta-owned Instagram on the mental health of some teen girls.
While the Facebook Papers humiliated Meta in 2021, they could prove even more problematic for the company in 2022, as governments around the world begin to crack down on the social media giant.
Poll Finds Distrust of Facebook, TikTok and Instagram
Most Americans distrust TikTok, Facebook and Instagram with their personal information and data, according to a Washington Post-Shcar School poll released Wednesday.
Seventy-two percent of respondents said they distrust Facebook. Other platforms under the same Meta parent company didn’t fare much better, with 60% of those surveyed saying they distrust Instagram and 53% said they distrust WhatsApp, based on the poll.
Sixty-three percent of surveyed Americans said they distrust video-sharing app TikTok with their data, according to the poll.
The poll found that 56% of respondents said Facebook has a negative impact on society, with just 10% saying the company has a positive impact.
Face Recognition Is Being Banned — but It’s Still Everywhere
In November, voters in Bellingham, Washington, passed a ballot measure banning government use of face recognition technology. It added to a streak of such laws that started with San Francisco in 2019 and now number around two dozen.
The spread of such bans has inspired hope from campaigners and policy experts of a turn against an artificial intelligence technology that can lead to invasions of privacy or even wrongful arrest.
Such feelings got a boost when Facebook unexpectedly announced on the day of the Bellingham vote that it would shutter its own face recognition system for identifying people in photos and videos, due to “growing societal concerns.”
This is the paradox of face recognition in 2021: The technology is banned in some places but increasingly normalized in others. That’s likely to continue, because face recognition is unregulated in most of the US, as there’s no federal law covering the technology.
