Path out of the Pandemic - September 9 White House Update
September 9, 2021, President Biden took brave, important steps to help the US get through the COVID-19 pandemic. He is using the power of his office and his agencies, especially OSHA. The six-pronged plan includes:
1. Vaccinating the unvaccinated
2. Further Protecting the Vaccinated
3. Keeping Schools Safely Open
4. Increasing Testing and Requiring Masking
5. Protecting Our Economic Recovery
6. Improving Care for those with COVID-19
The vaccination plan takes the most dramatic steps to protect our communities. I will focus on this for this post. Over 75% of adults have had at least one dose of their vaccine. Vaccination rates increased during August. However, those few Americans who remain unvaccinated are still getting sick, spreading COVID to others and dying. The plan tries to address those holdouts. The plan calls for:
1. Executive Branch employees and contractors must be vaccinated.
2. All employers with 100 employees or more will be required to ensure that their employees are fully vaccinated or at least get tested every week.
3. All healthcare, home health and other health sector workers at Medicare and Medicaid participating hospitals and other healthcare settings will be required to get vaccinated.
4. Calling on large entertainment venues to require proof of vaccination or testing for entry.
5. Requiring Employers to provide paid time off to get vaccinated.
6. Requiring staff at Head Start, DOD and Indian Affairs Schools to be vaccinated.
I am glad the administration and OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) are finally taking their role in ensuring workplace safety during the pandemic seriously. I founded Safer Public Health last summer in response to seeing patients with workplace related COVID infections and the lack of clear guidance. These steps taken by the administration will help keep workers and communities safe.
For more details see: https://www.whitehouse.gov/covidplan/
