CDC director says Biden admin has 'education and counseling' plan for essential workers who refuse COVID vaccine
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky employed the five rules of dodgeball — dodge, duck, dip, dive, and dodge — Sunday when asked about the Biden administration's plan to enforce a COVID-19 vaccine mandate against essential workers.
Walensky did, however, confirm the Biden administration has an eyebrow-raising plan to essentially coerce essential workers to get vaccinated.
What are the details?
During an interview on "Fox News Sunday," host Chris Wallace asked if the Biden administration is moving "full speed ahead on mandates for essential workers to get vaccinated?"
The question came after President Joe Biden said during a CNN town hall last week that police officers should be forced to get the COVID vaccine or be fired if they refuse.
The problem, as Wallace pointed out, is that a significant number essential workers nationwide — including police officers and health care workers — have made it clear they will not get the COVID vaccine even if it means losing their jobs. And if a significant number of essential workers lose their jobs over vaccine mandates, the ripple effect could have catastrophic impacts in communities across the country.
In response, Walensky claimed the "most disruptive thing that you can do to workforce is to have a COVID outbreak in that workforce" — not mass termination of unvaccinated employees.
"So we believe it is very important to get these people vaccinated," Walensky said.
In fact, according to Walensky, the Biden administration has developed an "education and counseling" plan to get essential workers vaccinated.
"There is a plan, should these people not want to be vaccinated, towards education and counseling to get people the information they need so that they are feeling comfortable in getting vaccinated," she explained.
Walensky, however, did not provide details on what exactly those "education and counseling" plans would look like.
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When pressed further by Wallace, who noted that losing significant numbers of essential workers over vaccine mandates will put America "further behind the ball," Walensky stuck to her talking points.
"You know, the way you can down a police force is by having a COVID outbreak in that police force. So what we're working to do is mitigate that from happening," she said.
Woman reportedly hauls off and slaps grocery store employee after the worker asks her to mask up
Authorities are seeking a woman in Colorado after she reportedly struck a grocery clerk who requested the woman put on a face mask while shopping inside the store.
What are the details?
According to KDVR-TV, the Parker Police Department is looking for the female suspect — who the store says is a regular customer — for questioning about the incident that took place earlier this month.
The station noted that employees regularly have to tell the woman — who has reportedly claimed to be medically exempt from wearing a face covering in public — to mask up.
The unnamed victim told police that the woman verbally harassed her, calling her a vulgar name.
"The worker told police she offered other options for the customer to buy groceries," KDVR reported. "The suspect has not been seen at the store since running off last week."
Surveillance footage captured the moment a female grocery store worker approached the woman, who is unmasked, as she shops inside the store. Seconds later, she can be seen slapping the employee.
The employee said that she is looking for the unnamed customer to be charged with harassment in connection with the incident.
Police are asking anyone who recognizes the woman to come forward with information on the purported attack.
On Wednesday, the Parker Police Department tweeted about the incident, writing, "We need your help to ID a suspect. The Cottonwood King Soopers employee said they were slapped by the suspect, Feb 3 at approx 5:50 pm. The suspect refused to wear a mask despite being asked several times & ran from the store afterward. email btberry@parkeronline.org w/info."
We need your help to ID a suspect. The Cottonwood King Soopers employee said they were slapped by the suspect, Feb… https://t.co/rV62Y6CjAU— Parker Police Dept. (@Parker Police Dept.)1612990469.0
Anything else?
Kim Cordova, who is president of the area United Food and Commercial Workers Union, said that the customer's actions were unconscionable.
“Grocery workers are Essential Heroes and have been on the frontlines during this entire pandemic at great personal risk," Cordova told the station. "They deserve to work in safe environments but unfortunately that hasn't been the case. They often deal with customers who refuse to wear masks, overcrowded stores, and stores that lack appropriate and adequate cleaning supplies, among other dangers to their personal safety. To avoid assaults by customers in the future, employers need to provide paid qualified security guards at stores."
Expert tells NY Times: Elderly white people shouldn't get coronavirus vaccine priority in order to 'level playing field' with minorities
The COVID-19 vaccine rolled out this week, and now there is a debate about which groups should be a priority on the coronavirus vaccine waiting list. The New York Times attempted to answer the question about the COVID-19 priority list in an article titled "The Elderly vs. Essential Workers: Who Should Get the Coronavirus Vaccine First?"
The article featured health experts, economists, and epidemiologists to give their insight into who should move to the front of the line for the COVID-19 vaccine. Much to the shock of many readers, the experts considered race when deciding who received priority in receiving the potentially life-saving vaccine.
Dr. Peter Szilagyi, a committee member and a pediatrics professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, declared, "The issue of ethics is very significant, very important for this country, and clearly favors the essential worker group because of the high proportion of minority, low-income and low-education workers among essential workers."
Harald Schmidt, an expert in ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania, told the New York Times, "It is reasonable to put essential workers ahead of older adults, given their risks, and that they are disproportionately minorities."
"Older populations are whiter, " Schmidt told the paper. "Society is structured in a way that enables them to live longer. Instead of giving additional health benefits to those who already had more of them, we can start to level the playing field a bit."
Schmidt proclaimed that essential workers should be given priority for the vaccine over the elderly, even though people aged 75-84 have a chance 220 times higher of dying from coronavirus than younger adults, and anyone over the age of 85 has a chance 630 times higher, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Marc Lipsitch, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health, also hinted that the race of a person should determine who should or should not get priority on the coronavirus waiting list. Lipsitch said that teachers shouldn't be considered essential workers, "if a central goal of the committee is to reduce health inequities."
"Teachers have middle-class salaries, are very often white, and they have college degrees," Lipsitch told the Times.
Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, asserted that teachers should be prioritized because it would allow people to get back to work with reliable child care at schools.
"And if you think generally about people who have jobs where they can't telework, they are disproportionately Black and brown," Gould said. "They'll have more of a challenge when child care is an issue."
Twitter user Jason Compson was one of the first people to point out the concerning racial aspects of the distribution of the coronavirus vaccine found in the New York Times article.
Later in the piece another doctor, named Marc Lipsitch, explains that teachers should not be considered essential w… https://t.co/DzFuytsOtH— Jason Compson (@Jason Compson)1608271747.0
So to sum up, in this single article by @JanHoffmanNYT, three experts--Schdmit, Lipsitch, and Gould-- say that more… https://t.co/Flz0Bh1rg6— Jason Compson (@Jason Compson)1608272107.0
BlazeTV personality Dave Rubin tore apart the article, "Just The NY Times quoting a doctor who wants to kill older white people for political purposes. (Which was the next obvious step of the garbage The NY Times has been pushing for years.) 'Expert in ethics' doesn't mean what it used to."
BlazeTV's Allie Beth Stuckey of the "Relatable" podcast, pointed out, "This is so insanely evil. Please, woke Christians, do go on about how Critical Race Theory is just a bogeyman made up by the right that doesn't pose any real threat. Tell me again about how Christian Nationalism is our biggest threat."
New York Post columnist Miranda Devine wrote, "Truly disgusting. Approved eugenics. Elderly are most at risk and should be first in line for a vaccine. The color of their skin is immaterial. What has happened to the medical profession?"
One commenter replied, "This thread shows there is something seriously rotten at the NY Times. The attempts to assign values to people's lives purely by skin color are unethical, immoral, and completely backwards."
Another person noted, "Just a little peek into government run healthcare right here."
The New York Times admitted that governors along with state and local health officials will ultimately decide who gets the coronavirus vaccine first and are not required to follow CDC guidelines.
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