Covid Solution?: Bill Would End Personal Belief Vaccine Exemption, By

Covid Solution?

Bill Would End Personal Belief Vaccine Exemption

By Jondi Gumz

Dr. Richard Pan is a doctor specializing in children and a state senator representing Sacramento since 2014. His bill, SB 277, became law in September 2019 after a measles outbreak at Disneyland — the goal to end the “vaccine exemption loophole” for kids attending public and private schools.

On Jan. 24, with the Covid-19 Omicron variant hospitalizing 15,000 Californians and 97,000 cases a day, Pan said he will introduce SB 871 to add COVID-19 to the list of 10 childhood illnesses for which students are required to be vaccinated – and remove the personal belief exemption.

The bill is at https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov

Public health officials consider vaccinations to be the number one tool to prevent hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19.

Employer Mandate

On Jan. 13, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the Biden administration mandate to large employers to vaccinate or test. That means 100 or more employees.

The ruling affects an estimated 84 million workers — and a minority of employers in Santa Cruz County where 82% of businesses have nine or fewer employers. Most of the large employers are medical facilities and schools.

The ruling said the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which regulates occupational hazards, did not have the right to regulate public health broadly.

The court allowed a federal vaccine mandate applying to medical facilities that take Medicare or Medicaid payments. That affects an estimated 100,000 workers.

On Jan. 25, OSHA said it would withdraw the vaccine and testing requirements for large employers.

Employers can mandate vaccines or tests for their employees if they feel it’s necessary.

Protesting Mandates

On Jan. 23, Children’s Health Defense, headed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. , rallied 20,000 to 30,000 people to a peaceful protest in Washington, D.C., at the Lincoln Memorial, calling for an end to vaccine mandates, a strategy used by President Biden and California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Kennedy, an attorney and a passionate advocate for vaccine choice, mentioned Anne Frank, who was Jewish, hiding to escape Nazis, a reference for which he apologized a day later. In Brussels, More than 50,000 filled the streets, protesting vaccine passports and Covid restrictions. Masked demonstrators broke a glass entrance to the office of the EU’s foreign policy agency, an action recorded on Twitter, and police fired water cannons and tear gas to break up the protest.

Public health officials say the scientific consensus is that Covid vaccines are safe, but protest leaders were skeptical about relying on science from drugmakers (which saw profits rise in 2021).

They point to the U.S. government database, https://vaers.hhs.gov/, where health care providers are to report adverse events after a vaccine.

The reporting site was created after Congress passed a law in 1986 protecting vaccine manufacturers from civil personal injury lawsuits and wrongful death lawsuits resulting from vaccine injuries.

After Covid arrived, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar invoked the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act, a 2005 law that allows the HHS secretary to provide legal protection to companies making or distributing critical medical supplies such as vaccines unless there’s “willful misconduct” by the company, according to a report by CNBC.

This lowers the cost of immunizations, and the protection lasts until 2024. HHS declined requests by CNBC for an interview.

Active Cases

The number of active cases in Santa Cruz County is skyrocketing, from 3,324 to 6,677 active cases in two weeks, despite the Nov. 22 mandate to mask indoors. The assumption is Omicron, the most easily transmissible variant of the Covid-19 coronavirus, is the driving the increase.

Cases began rising during the holidays, with 325 confirmed on Dec. 29, then 504 on Jan. 4, and 527 on Jan. 5, according to the county health dashboard, which is updated on Mondays and Wednesdays.

Hospitalizations are fluctuating — 39, down to 33, up to 41 including four in intensive care, according to a state dashboard. The question is: Will hospitalizations will rise — or decline, as San Francisco has seen.

Possibly people entered the hospital with another condition or for elective surgery, then got tested for Covid. The dashboard does not explain.

Local cases are split between Dominican Hospital in Santa Cruz and Watsonville Community Hospital, while filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection while trying to orchestrate a sale to a local consortium.

Earlier, county health officials urged people with no symptoms or mild symptoms or some other not-serious illness to stay home rather than going to the hospital emergency department.

Under the 1986 federal law EMTALA, emergency departments must treat everyone who comes in, regardless of ability to pay — an funded mandate

“COVID Update” page 9

Mee Memorial Hospital is using part of a grant from the federal government to install four billboards along the Highway 101 corridor to encourage the unvaccinated to step up for a shot. Billboards are to be installed from Soledad to San Ardo, communities that have the lowest vaccination rate in Monterey County.