Month: December 2021

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that all NYC employers will have to mandate COVID-19 vaccinations for their in-person workers under new rules announced on Monday. The vaccine mandate for private businesses will take effect Dec. 27 and is aimed at preventing a spike in COVID-19 infections during the holiday season and winter months. The new guidance would be the most aggressive in the nation. Vaccinations are already required for city employees including teachers, police officers and firefighters, and a vaccination mandate for employees of private and religious schools was announced last week. Current New York City COVID-19 rules also include at least one vaccine dose for indoor restaurant dining, entertainment venues and fitness centers. Under new mandates for indoor dining, entertainment and gyms, two shots will be required for people over 12. One shot will be required for children aged 5 to 11, who are not covered by the current mandate.

de Blasio said that he expects the new mandate to survive any legal challenges. The mandate will apply to roughly 184,000 businesses in the city, which has a population of 8.8 million.  Said de Blasio: “We are going to be working with businesses all over the city and that’s almost 200,000 businesses that are not already covered by the Key to NYC guidelines right now. We are going to be talking to them in the next days on how to put together the right plan to implement this. The specific guidance, the specific rules will come out Dec. 15.”  He added: “We’ve been living with this now for most of two years. We got to put it behind us and vaccine mandates in my experience are the one thing that really breaks through. And we do know this, vaccines every single time, you know, every single time there’s a fear of the vaccine won’t have an impact on a new variant. Well, guess what? Every single time the vaccines have worked. That’s a good track record. Let’s lean into it even more.”

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On Monday, the White House announced a diplomatic boycott of the upcoming Winter Olympics in China in a show of protest over human rights issues.  The move means President Joe Biden and other American officials will not attend, which is standard practice; however, athletes are allowed to participate in the February games.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a briefing that the decision is in part a signal of opposition to China’s treatment of its Uighur Muslim minority in western Xinjiang province. In March, the White House declared Beijing’s treatment of the Uighurs to be a genocide. Psaki told reporters: “The Biden administration will not send any diplomatic or official representation to the Beijing 2022 Olympic and Paralympic games given the PRC’s ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang and other human rights abuses. The athletes on Team USA have our full support. We will be behind them 100 percent as we cheer them on from home. We will not be contributing to the fanfare of the games.”

Beijing is scheduled to host the 2022 Winter Olympics on Feb. 4-20. It is the first U.S. boycott of any kind for the Olympic Games since President Jimmy Carter ordered a full boycott for the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow over Russia’s military invasion of Afghanistan. No American athletes participated in those Games, and Russia ordered a similar boycott of the Los Angeles Summer Olympics four years later.

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Former U.S. senator and Republican presidential and vice presidential candidate Bob Dole died on Sunday at 98 years old. The Elizabeth Dole Foundation, named after his wife, announced that Dole died in his sleep early Sunday morning. A cause of death was not immediately revealed, however, Dole announced in February that he had been diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer and would undergo treatment. The statement from the Elizabeth Dole Foundation read: ““It is with heavy hearts we announce that Senator Robert Joseph Dole died early this morning in his sleep,” adding, “At his death, at age 98, he had served the United States of America faithfully for 79 years.”

Dole served in the U.S. Army during World War II and survived serious injuries in battle in Italy. He earned two Purple Hearts and two Bronze Stars for valor during his service.  He served in the U.S. House as a representative from Kansas between 1961 and 1969. He was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1968 and represented Kansas in the Senate for 27 years, the last 11 as the Republican leader.

In 1976, Dole was the vice presidential nominee on the Republican ticket with incumbent President Gerald Ford; they ultimately lost in the general election to Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale. Dole then resigned from the Senate in 1996 to make a bid for President, ultimately losing to incumbent President Bill Clinton. Following his Presidential run, Dole began serving as special counsel with the law firm Alston and Bird in Washington and was appointed by then-President George W. Bush to co-head a bipartisan commission that delivered suggestions on improving the military’s health care system in 2008. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Clinton in 1997 and received the Congressional Gold Medal in 2018.

Dole is survived by his wife, former Sen. Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina, and daughter Robin Dole.

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The Louisiana Department of Health confirmed that ten passengers and crew members aboard a Norwegian Cruise Line ship tested positive for coronavirus. The Norwegian Breakaway returned to New Orleans on Sunday after a weeklong cruise.

The Louisiana state health department said its agency as well as Gov. John Bel Edwards, the city of New Orleans and the Port of New Orleans “are aware and working closely with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to initiate existing COVID-19 agreements and protocols with the cruise line.” The ship had stops in Belize, Honduras and Mexico. More than 3,200 people were onboard, and they all were to be tested before leaving the ship. The ship has a passenger capacity of 3,964.

The cruise line said the patients were all fully vaccinated and they were asymptomatic. Those who test positive for the virus will be required to travel home in a personal vehicle or self-isolate in accommodations provided by the cruise line. Passengers were given a test to use in three days.

The CDC requires everyone to have a negative test before boarding cruise ships, and vaccinations for those eligible with limited exemptions.

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