COMMUNITY NEWS
Covid Solution?
Bill Would End Personal Belief Vaccine Exemption
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By Jondi Gumz
r. 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 can be found at 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 n 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, schools or colleges. 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 n 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.
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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. 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, 50,000 people 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 drug-makers, 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. Dr. Pamela Popper of Ohio has sued HHS, FDA and CDC concerning use of vaccines for kids under 16, hopes to get discovery, the point at which both sides can get evidence. Updates are at https:// makeamericansfreeagain.com/ Active Cases he number of active cases in Santa Cruz County skyrocketed from 3,324 to 6,677 active cases in two weeks, despite the Nov. 22 mandate to mask indoors, then dipped on Jan. 27 to 5,229. 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. Omicron was confirmed in two cases in the county on Dec. 16 and 17. Hospitalizations are fluctuating — 39, down to 33, up to 44, including three 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
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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 unfunded mandate. Responding to a Times query via email, the California Department of Public Health estimates Omicron comprises 91% of cases statewide and Delta 6.5% but the state does not have a breakdown of Omicron hospitalizations or deaths. Not all COVID-19 cases requiring hospitalization are sequenced, the state emailed in response to the query, and the proportion of cases due to the Omicron variant who die is still being determined. Santa Cruz County reports 79.15 % of residents have a least one dose of vaccine and 72.65 % fully vaccinated. Less Deadly? micron may not be as deadly as Delta, which raged in 2021. Omicron left less serious illness in South Africa, but Israeli experts are not sure that is the situation in their country. Scotland reported 92 deaths on Jan. 20, 2021, and 4 deaths on Jan. 23, 2022, according to the Johns Hopkins University database. On Jan. 27, the San Francisco Chronicle reported people are dying at a lower rate than previous surges. Santa Cruz County reports 239 Covid deaths, up from 225 as of Dec. 15. One statistic is similar then and now: 79 percent of those who died had preexisting conditions. Why do people fear Omnicron? It could be they have a pre-existing condition (diabetes, obesity, asthma, high blood pressure). Half of Americans do, so they are at higher risk for severe Covid illness. So are people 85 and older.
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“COVID Update” page 8
www.tpgonlinedaily.com Capitola Soquel Times / February 2022 / 7
