Skip to main content

Showdown! Will Vaccine Mandates Prevail?

As American readers know, our Uniter-in-Chief announced a vaccine mandate for companies employing over 100 people. The rule has been drafted by OSHA (the Occupational Safety and Health Administration) and is now in review. It is expected to take effect in December--or to put it more plainly, millions of employees are supposed to be fired right before Christmas for the offense of being unvaccinated. Is this really going to happen? 

The day after the announcement, I talked to my boss, who's one of the owners where I work. He's a certified public accountant who advises businesses on compliance. He predicted lots of lawsuits and workarounds; I didn't get the sense there were any plans to fire unvaccinated employees. 

We've seen employers who've already issued mandates and claimed only 1% or so of their workforce left. But given the shortages, shutdowns, delays, rising prices, and rapidly rising wages for certain types of jobs, a 1% difference in the workforce beggars belief. Further, it doesn't take many employees leaving at once to create bottlenecks, especially when they work in similar positions and there aren't many applicants to replace them. Southwest Airlines finally realized this and is now defying a separate federal mandate, encouraging pilots to apply for exemptions. The mayor of Chicago, on the other hand, hasn't been as quick to catch on. 

As Mayor Lightfoot demands Chicago police get vaccinated, those officers have flooded police departments in northwest Indiana (just outside Chicago) with calls and emails seeking employment. Indiana Senator Mike Braun even invited them to contact his office so they can be put in touch with a police department that's hiring--the state police and the Indianapolis Metro Police Department among them. I imagine Senator Braun, who's a former employer himself, talked to the state attorney general about whether the upcoming OSHA mandate will be enforceable and got a response of "probably not." 





So there are indications, from people in a position to know, that federal mandates aren't going to fly and that employer mandates aren't necessarily workable. 

Not only do vaccine mandates make no sense in terms of public health--COVID vaccination rates aren't correlated with COVID rates and provide only small reduction in transmission that recedes or disappears after three months--but they're causing turmoil and simply shuffling people around. 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fermented bread and butter pickle recipe ft. L. Plantarum

After Dr. Davis said the other night that  L. plantarum  may reduce some of the effects of the herbicide glyphosate (which is everywhere), I'm re-running my recipe for fermented bread and butter pickles. Pickling cucumbers naturally have  L. plantarum  bacteria on them, and fermenting them with some brown sugar multiplies these bacteria. (Just don't use chlorinated water to wash them.) And if you're growing your own cucumbers, avoid spraying the fruits with  Bacillus thuringiensis , or Bt (leaves and vines are OK). It's unclear what effect a big dose of Bt would have on humans. Another benefit of DIY pickles: no emulsifiers like polysorbate 80, which is a common ingredient in pickles. If you have GI problems, it could be from emulsifiers. These sweet-and-sour pickles are the tastiest I've ever made. There's just a little added sugar (some of which the bacteria will consume) and turmeric that gives the pickles their bright color.  Special equipment Quar...
Post a Comment
Read more

Collagen-filled Low Carb Burritos

Low-carb, grain-free Mexican food is hard to find, but it's easy to make your own at home. This recipe has an authentic ingredient: carne de lengua, or beef tongue. Don't be put off: beef tongue is tender, delicious, and full of collagen. Look for it directly from farmers in your area. To cook it, cut it in 1" to 1-1/2" slices and pressure cook for one hour. Enjoy the delicious broth as a bonus. Ingredients 1 slice cooked beef tongue, peeled and cut into small cubes 1 egg wrap (I use these  from Egglife) 1/4 cup cooked black or pinto beans Chili pepper Oregano Garlic (powdered or minced) Cumin Guacamole (with no emulsifiers) Salsa Shredded cheddar cheese Sour cream or homemade cream cheese  with no emulsifiers  Put the egg wrap on a plate and put the beef and beans down the middle of it. Sprinkle with the herbs and spices. Wrap, turn over and microwave for 1-2 minutes. Spoon salsa over the burrito and sprinkle with cheese. Add guacamole and sour cream or homemade crea...
Post a Comment
Read more

15% Off Starter Culture

Starter culture for the wonderful cream cheese I made is 15% off for the next two weeks (through June 18, 2025). The shop (BacillusBulgaricus.com) also offers rennet and starter for other cheeses, yogurt, kefir, kombucha, sour cream, fermented vegetables, and more. They ship to 118 countries across six continents. The coupon code is LORI_sekd3tkb at bacillusbulgaricus.com .  Photo from Pexels .
Post a Comment
Read more

Carrageenan: A Sickening Thickener. Is it a Migraine Menace?

Let me tell you about my ride in an ambulance last night. I woke up at six o'clock from a nap with a mild headache. I ate dinner and took my vitamins, along with a couple of extra magnesium pills. Since magnesium helps my TMJ flare-ups, I thought it might help my headache. Then I went to see my mother. A few hours later, I had a severe headache, sinus pain and nausea. During a brief respite from the pain, I left for home, but less than a mile later, I got out of my car and threw up. A cop, Officer Fisher, pulled up behind me and asked if I was okay. He believed me when he said I hadn't been drinking, but he said I seemed lethargic and he wanted the paramedics to see me. (Later he mentioned that a man he'd recently stopped was having a stroke.) Thinking I had a migraine headache, the paramedics wanted to take me to the hospital. But since I knew that doctors don't know what causes migraine headaches, and I didn't know what effect their medicine would have on m...
15 comments
Read more

Getting Over Palpitations

Note to new readers: please note I'm not a health care provider and have no medical training. If you have heart palpitations, I have no idea whether the following will work for you. Over the past several days, I've had a rough time with heart palpitations and feeling physically jittery. I was wondering if I was going to turn into one of those people who can't sit still. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it would be a major lifestyle change. Kidding aside, something wasn't right and I really needed to get back to normal. I tried popping potassium pills like candy. I ate more. I doubled up on my iron dose. I went to yoga and even got on the treadmill at 6 AM yesterday. I tried the nuclear option of eating more carbs to stop peeing away minerals. Most of these things helped, but the problem kept coming back. A comment from Galina made me look up epinephrine, one of the drugs my surgeon used to anesthetize me Friday. First, the assistant at the surge...
16 comments
Read more