I never thought we would be speaking about COVID so actively in the summer of 2021, several months after the vaccine became widely available in the US. But here we are, with reinstated mask mandates, anticipated surges, facing overcrowded ERs and feeling gut punched as we read about the death toll climbing and the age of those suffering lowering. Since we haven’t been able to convince enough people to take their health and the health of those around them seriously, cities and states are taking precautions to ensure their workers are safe. Los Angeles will mandate proof of vaccination for their employees or have them submit to weekly COVID testing. The Los Angeles Times has more.
Los Angeles will require city employees to provide proof of vaccination against COVID-19 or undergo weekly testing to show they have tested negative, Mayor Eric Garcetti and City Council President Nury Martinez announced Tuesday. Garcetti, announcing the new requirements, cited “an alarming spike in cases among our city workforce.”
The plan is expected to be rolled out through a mayoral order issued Wednesday, following a meeting of a city committee focused on employee relations that will discuss how the new requirements will be implemented.
Martinez expressed deep frustration with the rebound in infections, saying that Angelenos who had stayed inside to protect themselves and others were “getting tired of protecting people who don’t want to protect themselves.”
“We need unvaccinated Angelenos to stop dragging their feet,” Martinez said. “As the largest employer in the city of Los Angeles, this is us doing our part.”
If you remember, Southern California went through a terrifying spike in the early part of this year prior to widespread vaccine rollout. California had been absolutely destroyed by this virus and that was after we were heralded as the ones to follow for COVID protocol. But we reopened too soon, and it just about wiped us out. So, it doesn’t surprise me at all that LA is taking these steps. San Francisco and Pasadena have also announced plans to enforce vaccination requirements. The article said Garcetti might remove the testing option and simply mandate the vaccination once it receives full FDA approval. Garcetti’s been tapped by Pres. Biden as Ambassador to India, he’s not worried about reelection.
I have no more patience on this topic. If this was a horror movie they would be trying to convince the audience why half the population refused to take the vaccine to the virus. It’s ludicrous. I don’t need my tax money spent to babysit a bunch of folks who refuse to get a vaccine created to save their life. And what’s even more galling is a large number of the city workers being targeted, according to the article, are police and firefighters. Just think about that the next time you need to call 911. They are going to have to invent a new word for stupid to describe this era when they teach about us in the history books.
Photo credit: Avalon Red, Getty Images and Backgrid
Major companies are following suit. Good. Corporate America can, for better or worse, exert tremendous pressure publicly, so maybe requiring vaccinated employees will help move the needle.
Businesses, venues, theaters, bars… ALL should require proof of vaccination to enter the premises, or a VALID test done w/in the last 2 or 3 days. Perhaps if it was made inconvenient enough for these a$$wipes to have to do this every time they wanted to be out in the world, they’d finally do the right thing and get us to herd immunity.
I will PROUDLY show my bar code/vax card to get out safely. Going to a restaurant, the theater, a ball game, concert, etc is a PRIVILEGE, *NOT* a RIGHT. You don’t want to vax? Ok. Don’t. Sit your @$$ at home then, and the rest of us will get on with life.
Yesterday was the first day my husband’s employer allowed vaccinated employees back into the office. If they aren’t vaccinated or refuse to share their status they can’t come back to the office and the company has been maintaining during the pandemic that they are a work from the office company. The people who refuse to get vaccinated are going to end up eventually getting severed. It’s going to take longer than I think it should before they bring the hammer down. One of my husband’s employees said he’s not getting vaccinated because he already had covid. He was in the military and let the government inject him with god knows what while he was in service. And it’s not like already having it prevents you from getting it again.
It maddens me beyond words to think we COULD be looking at this virus in the rear view mirror already, taking away its power to mutate here, w/in our borders, thereby freeing enough extra vaccine to be given to other poorer countries w/out the resources to buy enough for their populace.
&*^%$#! TFG and his evil, corrupt cronies who politicized this for their own greed, power, racism, and xenophobia. NO hell is horrible enough for them, and 10 lifetimes in jail will never be enough for the almost million deaths they will have caused by the time this is over, and the hundreds of thousands left with long term illness caused by this virus.
A lot of them are white MAGA. But we have plenty of left-leaning woo folks, and wellness moms who just know better. I want them all treated the same. Get vaccinated or you go nowhere. I’m tired of picking up the check for these idiots. Really tired.
Oh, I completely agree. Stupid is stupid, regardless of political leaning. But when you look at the map showing the vaccinated states, the majority of unvaxxed is through the red swath in the middle of the country, and the red “spots” in otherwise blue states.
Here in CA we have hot, red spots, like Orange County, Huntington Beach (rabid!), San Diego…as well as parts of the Central Valley, and some places in Northern CA (esp. north of San Francisco. No place is immune from the crazy.
That’s true, I guess it is mostly the MAGAs. It’s just so unbelievable to me.
The pandemic has made me realize how close Orange County is to LA. It’s like having a crazy neighbor live next door. They breed MAGAs, Karens, and antivaxers.
Don’t even get me started on the stupidity of demanding EVERYTHING open back up, but then also opposing masks and vaccines. Tragically stupid.
Not according to my doctor friend. It’s mostly young people right now. 40% of hospitalizations in my area are under 40. Notice that’s hospitalizations! The other segment he said has been resistant in his practice is African Americans. As he is not American, I explained that they had historic reason not to trust the government (Tuskegee).
The vaccinated are bearing the burden of the unvaccinated, and we need to switch this up. Make life hell for them. You don’t want to get vaxxed? No admission to movie theatres, ballparks, concert venues, airplanes. Corporations; not vaxxed? you’re fired.
And for the people who will buy phony vax cards online? That’s an easy fix. One year minimum sentence in prison, no exceptions, no plea deals, mandatory time. See how fast they drop that smug little play. Let’s clear out all the low level, non violent drug offenders to make room for them.
TOTALLY AGREE Darla. I posted something similar above!
Completely agree with you Darla and with what TheOGJan said above. Vaccines should be required for those activities that we all missed over the past year – you want to eat in a restaurant? Show your vaccine card. You want to go to the theater? Vaccine card. And so on.
👍🏻👏🏻👍🏻👏🏻.👍🏻👏🏻👍🏻👏🏻.👍🏻👏🏻👍🏻👏🏻
It’s so unkind of me, but I’m getting so mad at unvaccinated people using up our medical resources and needlessly exposing medical personnel to covid. I feel like if they are against getting vaccinated they should also be against getting treatment. (I’m NOT saying treatment should be denied, just that it’s making me angry).
The thing is, if we want these policies to be enforceable, at some point law enforcement agencies — sheriffs, police— would have to get involved. In the vast majority of the US, law enforcement absolutely refused and will refuse to enforce any COViD related mandates. That is part of the whole picture of why the US has one of the worst pandemic situations in the world – a huge swath of the population (which very much includes law enforcement) doesn’t care and won’t cooperate. This is a key difference between the US and many other countries.
If law enforcement won’t back it up, you have a high risk of underpaid laborers at stores, venues, etc facing violence if they even try to bar entry to premises or even ASK people to comply. We’ve seen it with masks and distancing (workers beaten, shot, even killed), we’d see it with requiring to show test results or vaccine records (which can be easily faked, BTW).
In my state which has a Dem governor but many right wingers especially in suburbs and rural areas, even getting law enforcement to enforce mandated restaurant closures at the peak of the pandemic last winter was problematic. Inspectors trying to make sure restaurants were not egregiously flouting the rules, or even trying to carry out court orders, got their lives threatened and little law enforcement cover or backup.
Unless these policies are backed with enforcement and don’t put workers at risk of violence they are not workable IMO. And they generally won’t be backed with enforcement.
Buying or selling a fake vaccine card is actually 5 years in prison.
Don’t worry. When their children start dying on ventilators, they’ll reconsider. And children are starting to die on ventilators.
I don’t know—children dying doesn’t seem to do anything for gun control in the US, so I doubt it would do anything for anti-vaxxers.
Biden is supposed to announce today that Fed’s will need to be vaccinated. I’m on board
Good. It’s time to start forcing the issue. Get the vaccine, or face the consequences. We did our part, time for you to do yours.
If this were a movie test screening feedback would make them change it because people’s reactions are so unbelievable in real life. I reserve a special place in hell for the people who KNOW what they’re saying is wrong and keep pushing the conspiracies to appeal to their ‘base’. That amounts to manslaughter.
And don’t forget, just about ALL of them ARE VACCINATED (and have been for some months!)!!
This is a good thing. This means A LOT of LAPD will be vaccinated. Not saying they are hold outs, but I live in a community with a lot of cops and their families. They have been a bit resistant. This is a good thing. I love it when Garcetti pisses them off.
We absolutely need to take France’s stance and make life awful for people who refuse the vaccine. You don’t want to get a free shot that saves your life and others? Ok, go be a pariah over there.
I wonder how Jenny McCarthy is sleeping at night, knowing she set off this unhinged anti-vaxx nonsense. I know it was amplified mightily by the right wing apparatus, but she lit the spark all those years ago. Does it bother her at all?
I seriously doubt it bothers her Jessica. I wish it did. I work in Pharma and what she has done bothers me no end. She doesn’t realize what harm she has caused.
Couldn’t agree with you both more. But I’m also still upset with Oprah for giving her (and Dr. Oz) a platform.
I’m so frustrated! The conspiracy theories are spreading like crazy through the natural health/wellness worlds and Trumpers. I saw someone share today an article from some Canadian doctor that released a press release saying that basically everyone that got the vaccine is going to be dying with some heart issues in the next few years. A quick Google search told me this doctor had been in trouble with the Canadian government many times before and seems shady AF but people think these “truth warriors” are telling the truth and mainstream media is all in on the conspiracy to kill everyone. I don’t get how people think that they are somehow so smart that they found this one Doctor who has no evidence to back up his claims and is clearly financially benefiting from spreading these lies (do anti vaxxers think this content is being shared from the goodness of their hearts? Anti vaxxers and their leaders are cashing in on this pandemic more than anyone else at this point and none of them seem to realize it. Big pharma ain’t the only ones making money off this pandemic.) I’m so pissed off about these selfish a holes.
Police haven’t been masking at all since the start of the pandemic. They openly flout the mandates as if it’s a joke. So good for this new rule and they better comply. It makes me sick to see how police think they can just get away with anything, always above the fucking law. We need abolition now.
I wish my company would go back to a mask mandate. That way it would keep the unvaccinated morons at home. Yes, they would not come in when told to wear a mask in the office and they’re the ones unvaccinated. I really want to complain about the lady who sits next to me who hasn’t gotten a shot.
I’m a City of LA employee and I’m relieved that we are being required to show proof of vaccination or get tested. This will make it safer for me in my workplace. At a work event a couple of weeks ago I was exposed to a vaccinated colleague who had a breakthrough infection. I’ve been tested twice since then – both negative – so I think I’m in the clear, but it was nerve-wracking.
I live in a small Florida town. Our county is at a 50% vax rate. All my elderly Fox News watching neighbors got vaccinated right away. My friends who have little kids and are in their late 20s/30s, mostly liberal and refuse to wear masks or get vaccinated. They tell me Covid is no big deal and that they’re going to keep living their lives. It’s very frustrating to me ,( hubs & I are vaxed) I have an 8yr old who I kept home and did virtual for a year and a half and A 1yr old. My 8 yr is constantly upset when I tell her that she can’t have a playdate with these kids. We signed up to do in person school this year, but now masks won’t be required because these moms petitioned the school board to drop them. I’m terrifed, but my daughter mental health was really bad when we did virtual.
Good. Antivaxers are a wart on the world.