Skip to main content

Vaccination of unvaccinated health care workers backfires as Biden pledges help amid COVID outbreak

ageless canada

In response to the spike in omicron variant cases, President Biden has deployed military doctors and health workers to hospitals. Over the past few months, thousands of health care workers have been fired for refusing to comply with vaccine mandates, leaving health care providers unable to meet patient demand due to a staffing shortage. 

As part of the COVID-*19 Response Team's regular call with the National Governors Association, Biden said, "We're mobilizing an additional 1,000 military doctors, nurses and medics to help staff hospitals.

First lady Jill Biden and President Joe Biden speak by teleconference with the NORAD Tracks Santa Operations Center in Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado, Friday, Dec. 24, 2021, on the White House campus in Washington. Photo by Carolyn Kaster (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

STAFFING SHORTAGES WORRY HOSPITAL AS VACCINE DEADLINES LOOM

"FEMA is deploying hundreds of ambulances and EMS crews to transport patients. We’ve already deployed emergency response teams in Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, Vermont, New Hampshire, and New Mexico. We’re ready to provide more hospital beds as well." luminesce skin care

In New York state, Gov. Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency over the omicron variant and called in the National Guard to assist with nursing homes. She added that hospitals in the state at over 90% capacity could be ordered to stop elective procedures to focus on the surge. Biden said testing facilities will also be opened in the state. 

Four months ago, disgraced former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced a vaccine mandate for health care workers, and those who did not comply faced termination. 

Canada skin care

Since then 31,858 health care workers at nursing homes, hospitals and other health providers have been terminated, furloughed or forced to resign because they would not comply with the mandate, according to New York health data provided to Fox News. The total number of inactive employees in the state due to the vaccine mandate sits at 37,192 as of Dec. 21, according to the data. 

In this image taken from video, New York Gov. 

Kathy Hochul speaks during a virtual press conference, Thursday, Dec. 2, 2021, in New York. Multiple cases of the omicron coronavirus variant have been detected in New York, health officials said Thursday, including a man who attended an anime convention in Manhattan in late November and tested positive for the variant when he returned home to Minnesota.  (AP Photo)health skin care

More than 2,350 nursing home staffers alone were fired for not complying. The New York National Guard deployed 120 members to 12 nursing homes and long term care facilities to assist with staffing shortages this month.

Nurses who still have jobs in the state have been sounding the alarm on the staffing shortages for months, and are bracing for it to only get worse. 

skin care

LAST YEAR'S HEROES, THIS YEAR'S SCAPEGOATS: FRONTLINE WORKERS LIVELIHOODS AT STAKE OVER VACCINE MANDATES

"We have a massive nursing shortage,"  Eric Smith, the statewide field director for the New York State Nurses Association, told the New York Daily News last month. "We have a vacuum in the double and triple digits all across the New York area." instantly ageless

Omicron has been detected in every state, and various states keep breaking records for daily coronavirus cases due to the spike. COVID cases have increased by 48% over the past week across the nation, and the average daily cases sit at 182,682, according to Johns Hopkins. Hospitalizations for the omicron variant, however, have so far been lower than other variants, with hospitals nationwide seeing a 2% increase in patients. 

Massachusetts and New Jersey are among the states seeing spikes. Vaccine mandates in those states also led to hundreds of firings and resignations. 

Across three health care systems alone in Massachusetts, there have been 506 confirmed firings over vaccine mandates. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health did not immediately provide Fox News with data on total firings and resignations over the mandates. https://agelesscanada.com/product-category/luminesce/

The state is grappling with staffing shortages this month and moved to cut some nonessential, elective services and procedures by 50%, and Republican Gov. Charlie Baker activated 500 National Guard members to assist hospitals. 

Hauppauge, N.Y.: Health care workers protest against being forced to get the Covid-19 vaccine, outside the New York State Office Building in Hauppauge, New York on Long Island on Aug. 27, 2021. (Photo by Alejandra Villa Loraca/Newsday RM via Getty Images) (Alejandra Villa Loraca/Newsday RM via Getty Images)

While in New Jersey, there have been 238 confirmed firings or resignations across two hospital systems due to vaccine mandates. Fox News asked the New Jersey Department of Health for data on the total number of fired health care workers, but a representative said the department did not have that information. 

DOZENS OF MASSACHUSETTS STATE TROOPERS HAVE QUIT OVER COVID-19 VACCINE MANDATE: UNIOluminesce skin care, N

New Jersey has not activated the National Guard to assist with omicron spikes, but Gov. Phil Murphy said "everything is on the table" last week when asked about how the state will combat the spikes. 

Staffing shortages are occurring while flu cases, which were very low last year during the pandemic, are spiking, notably in Washington, D.C., New Jersey, Kansas and Indiana. 

WINCHESTER, VA - AUGUST 10: Striking healthcare workers and relatives of healthcare workers pray during a protest on August 10, 2021 in Winchester, VA. Healthcare workers have gone on strike over a COVID-19 vaccine mandate by their employer Valley Health. (Photo by Duncan Slade for the Washington Post) (Duncan Slade for the Washington Post)

Hospitals in other states grappling with shortages amid the spikes have halted vaccine mandates while also activating the National Guard. 

In Ohio this month, hospitals across the state hit the "pause" button on their vaccine mandates, pointing to legal reasons and staffing shortages. And Republican Gov. Mike DeWine activated 1,050 Ohio National Guard members to assist with hospitals. 

"We’re pretty much running full steam 24 hours a day, particularly with ICU as high as it’s been, it really takes a toll on our caregivers," said Ohio Hospital Association director of Media and Public Relations John Palmer.

Iowa meanwhile is spending more than $9 million to hire out-of-state nurses to cope with a spike in hospitalizations. The state will pay nurses through a Kansas company, who will be expected to work 20 hours of overtime at $330 an hour.  

DESANTIS SLAMS BIDEN FOR IGNORING 'NATURAL IMMUNITY IN VACCINE MANDATES

The staffing shortages, terminations and now the spikes in omicron cases have not been lost on critics, who are calling the problems "government created." 

The White House did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment on the activation of military health care workers following thousands of unvaccinated workers being fired. 

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

"The bottom line is: We want to assure the American people that we’re prepared.  We know what it takes.  And as a — as this group of bipartisan governors has shown, we’re going to get through it by working together," Biden said Monday on his call with the National Governors Association.

luminesce skin care

Health Care Workers Died During Delta. Here's How to Keep Them Safer During Omicron: Analysis

The omicron variant has now been detected in all 50 states. While more will be known about omicron in the near future, the toll the new variant is taking on an already taxed health care system is of concern now.

Take a look back at what the delta surge did to the health care workforce (defined by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as paid or unpaid workers who are exposed to patients or infectious materials) – many of them suffered burnout, had grueling workloads due to staffing shortages and non-COVID care was impacted.

The challenges are beginning to mount with staffing shortages because of omicron infections, and in some parts of the country hospitals are being strained.

Statistics from the CDC contain a pretty striking fact: seven of the 10 deadliest weeks for health workers during the pandemic occurred after July 2021. This was an inflection point in which we had rising cases of delta, more than 30% unvaccinated Americans, kids returning to school along with employers reopening offices in some parts of the country. instantly ageless, jeunesse ageless

Deaths from COVID-19 at the beginning of the pandemic weren't surprising. It was a new disease, we were learning, and vaccines were not available. Personal protective equipment (PPE) was in short supply. Our knowledge of how to treat people was limited.

But then, as expected, holiday travel subsided and more importantly, vaccines became had more available and had even wider uptake with employee mandates. The number of deaths dropped.

Until late summer of this year, that is. Fewer than five health care workers died of COVID in early June of 2021. But during the first week of August 2021, the number shot up to 70 and a week later it was 85. In September, the number of health care workers dead from COVID spiked to 109.

Some experts say the rise in COVID-related health care worker deaths correlated with school reopening in the fall and the rise in the delta variant.

Healthcare workers treat patients infected with Covid-19 at United Memorial Medical Center in Houston, Texas, December 31, 2020.

At over 18% of reported cases, health care workers continue to bear a significant brunt of COVID disease burden in the country. Continued exposure to infection including to higher risk unvaccinated people means increased risk to our critical healthcare workforce, said John Brownstein, Ph.D., an epidemiologist, chief innovation officer at Boston Children's Hospital and an ABC News contributor.

We don’t know the vaccination status of healthcare workers that have died but unequivocally the evidence suggests vaccines are highly protective against sever disease, hospitalizations and deaths.

Health care workers were at the front of the line for COVID vaccines. And sure enough, once they began to get vaccinated, their risk for death dropped precipitously.

But late summer correlated with six months after most health care workers would have gotten their initial shots. Last summer, Pfizer BioNTech, one manufacturer of COVID vaccines, reported that real-world evidence from Israel, one of the first countries to roll out a nationwide vaccination program, showed a decrease in efficacy about six months after people were fully vaccinated.

"Vaccination protection is waning," said Dr. Asha Shajahan, a family physician who practices in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. "The majority of people have had two vaccinations, but evidence supports the notion that protection from vaccines decreases over time."

Based on this information, we can take concrete steps to keep COVID-related deaths among health care workers low and improve working conditions during the pandemic. Here's how we can do that:

1. Don't go backward on vaccine mandates. Earlier this month, some of the largest hospital systems in the country dropped their vaccine mandates, citing the high cost of labor and uncertainty about whether the mandates will survive judicial review.

Hospitals, more so perhaps than any other employers, have an obligation to keep everyone inside their walls safe and healthy.

2. Booster shots should also be available to all—and mandated in all health care delivery settings. Both the FDA and CDC agree that all adults who have gotten vaccinations should get a booster, which reinforces immunity to the virus.

Data from LA County showed 20-fold increased protection with a booster compared to four-fold increase without, compared to unvaccinated, said Dr. Atul Nakhasi, a physician and policy advisor with the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services.

"Boosting and continuing the normal contact precautions continue to be the most effective way to curb the spread of omicron," said Dr. Sunny Jha, an anesthesiologist who has treated COVID patients in Los Angeles and member of the #ThisIsOurShot leadership team.

3. Health care systems must support the well-being of their workers. Long before the COVID pandemic first showed up, health care workers were known to be burned out and suffering. Doctors and other health care staff are often expected to be available 24/7, leading to an unhealthy work-life balance.

But since the pandemic began, clinician burnout has skyrocketed.

COVID continues to pose a threat to the health care system itself.

Dr. Shikha Jain, an oncologist with the University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System, warned that a surge in COVID-19 cases and staffing shortages caused by health care workers who have left the medical field or are sick themselves is creating "a perfect storm."

"Our communities are still getting sick and pretty soon we won't have health care workers to take care of them," said Jain.

Health systems can alleviate burnout by giving health care workers mental health days to recoup after major surges in virus-related illnesses, Shajahan said.

She said that in Michigan, in the early days of the pandemic, "the National Guard was very helpful in relieving health care workers who were already so burned out."

Physicians are trained to look at numbers: heart rate, blood pressure, temperature. And that's why we have started looking at how many of our colleagues are dying from COVID. The spike we saw this fall was alarming. But it's also a reminder that, by taking specific measures and continuing to get unvaccinated Americans vaccinated, we can turn the tide and make work in health care safe for everyone.

A surge also means unnecessary loss of life among our frontline healthcare workers, added Brownstein.

Dr. Jay Bhatt, an ABC News contributor, is an internal medicine physician and an instructor at the University of Illinois School of Public Health.


A Promising Year For Electric Vehicles, Health Care, and Space Exploration in 2022

Yay, welcome to 2022!

When I looked back at 2021 last week, I started with fairly negative emotions — but as I dug into some of 2021’s tech trends, I spotted more good than I first realized. In fact, the glass-half-full part of me thinks we might actually have some things to look forward to in 2022.

Of course, the biggest tech story for 2022 has already pulled into our 2021 driveway. Last year, we saw both traditional automotive companies and a host of startups/nontraditional car companies announce electric vehicle (EV) production plans. In 2021, manufacturing pivoted — and in 2022 these products will hit the market, resulting in an even bigger consumer pivot.

No longer the talk of Tesla alone, 2022 brings EVs out of concept and onto the highways. We’re talking full-electric — not merely a transitional hybrid, but a complete and total switch away from combustion engines to spinning electric motors

We’ve got Rivian trucks and SUVs and Amazon delivery vans, Fisker SUVs, Lucid and Polestar sedans, Ford’s buzzy F-150 Lightning that President Biden gleefully took out for a spin on the test track — not to mention a full vehicle lineup from Toyota, GM, and Kia.

I could go on and on and on, because in 2022 talking cars means talking EV. I’ve been writing about EV technology for years and I’m so tickled to see 2022 arrive! This is a tech story, an automotive story, a business story and a consumer trend story. In short, when we look back on 2022 a year hence, we might shake our heads in disbelief that the ubiquitous EV seemed so novel a mere 12 months before.

Tech in health care will continue to climb

In another ongoing movement, the tech-in-health trendline uptick will continue in 2022. Telemedicine, in one form or another, will stay with us. The research and development capacity in response to COVID-19 will begin to create gains in the battles against other diseases as well. Fast-tracked development of Messenger RNA (mRNA) based applications will ripple into cancer treatments and vaccines for other infectious diseases.

Story continues

In my dreams, the structure of health care would reshape, improve and become more responsive and accessible, too. Rolling out these changes would have a big tech-driven component, but realistically the politics of it all probably means very little on the industry side of the health story will change in 2022 but don’t blame tech for that.

We’ve spent 2020 and 2021 learning how to work and interact using video and other remote collaboration tools — and they won’t be leaving in 2022 either. Not only have we become accustomed to remote tools, but the seismic generational shift in the workplace now tilts toward millennials and Gen Z groups, people for whom digital communication is just, well, communication. Although the pandemic may have hastened the shift in workplace form and format, the rise of digitally reared generations moving through the working world in increasing numbers each year drives this trend — and 2022 will be no exception.

The revival of in-person and non-video communication

At the same time that workplace communication continues to rely on digital interaction, we’ll also see a rise in analog interaction on the personal side of the ledger, especially among Gen Z. We saw the start of this in 2021, when paper greeting card sales began soaring as this cohort became fascinated with its version of something new: retro ink-on-paper. These customized forms of an old medium may well surprise us in 2022.

A longing for the retro is also why I think the metaverse (looking at you Facebook/Meta) could be 2022’s big dud. Virtual reality and augmented reality teased us with promise and excitement in many a New Year’s past; the metaverse wants to do the same this year. After many attempts, VR and AR remain faint promises with niche applications; despite all the hype neither have become The Next Big Thing. I doubt the metaverse will either, at least not in 2022.

As we slog through into the third year of enforced remoteness, the idea of connecting in a pretend world lacks playfulness, novelty and attraction. Not only is the emotional timing off, but the intent sends out bad vibes as well. VR and AR had a pretty little luster of hope and shimmer for cool newness on them, while the metaverse just feels a bit icky and creepy from the get-go. I’m betting that the world will do a cumulative vote for real dinner with real friends in a real restaurant over avatars sipping pretend drinks in an alternative digital world. We might be a bit worn and fractured, but I don’t think 2022 will be the year we check out of reality.

Our connection with an expanded reality may continue, though. Through the Mars Perseverance Rover explorations, through Artemis’ push to the next generation of moon travel, through the ongoing normalization of space travel by SpaceX/NASA collaborations, and through the first glimpses of the past from the new James Webb Space Telescope that we’ll be getting later on this year, we have the potential to stretch the boundaries of our world in 2022. In addition, both the technology and infrastructure for deep underwater exploration continues to grow, and we might see our own earth-based horizon expand deeper into the waters beneath us this coming year.

Make 2022 a year of intentional choices around your personal data

On the dark side, technology — or more precisely, the commercial interests deploying technology — continues its relentless gnawing on our privacy. From new internet activity trackers to expanding home devices that want to create a “smart” home, more and more of our footprint gets recorded and repackaged — the better to sell, of course.

In 2022, it will be up to each of us to individually set the boundaries between functionally useful sharing and invasion of privacy discomfort. We’ll need to intentionally make active decisions to keep our every move from being pulled into the vortex of “convenience.” When those boxes asking about which cookies you want pop up on your screen, take a minute to select what level of tracking you’ll accept; don’t just embrace the default “all.” Make 2022 a year of intentional choices when it comes to your personal data.

And last but not least, cryptocurrency, neural networks, and other alternative value arrangements won't miss a beat. So far, these explorations, along with booms and busts, have been part of a tech fringe, happening behind the scenes or off the stage of most people's lives. That doesn't mean it hasn't happened, and it won't continue to happen. In 2022, I would put my money on at least one viral story about the excess, crash or gee-whiz moment of cryptocurrency, but I predict that the real shifts occurring within this seething technology space will continue below the radar, with broad public impact at least a decade away.

I'm feeling a tiny bit optimistic as we get ready to welcome January 2022. Following many years of settling in, adjusting to, and absorbing a generation of technological change, I believe that 2022 might be the beginning of a new era. I doubt we'll see ah-ha moments of a big breakthrough, but I suspect that when the dust settles, the tech industry may have a surprisingly interesting year.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Bebe Rexha Shares She's Insecure After Weight Gain: 'I Don't Feel Good In My Skin

Bebe Rexha isn't feeling her best in her skin. luminesce skin care The "Me Myself and I" vocalist got genuine on TikTok this week, disclosing to her more than 7.1 million adherents that she's made a stride back from posting via web-based media because of feeling awkward with her body. "I think I am the heaviest I have at any point been," Rexha, who was close to tears, said in the video. "I gauged myself a little while ago and I feel awkward sharing the weight cause I feel humiliated." The 32 year old added that she feels "sickening" in her own body. "I don't feel great in my skin and when I don't feel better, I would rather not post," she proceeded. "What's more that is actually really the explanation I haven't been posting somewhat recently or so however much I used to."   luminesce skin care Artist Bebe Rexha says she feels "humiliated" by her weight in another TikTok. (Photograph by Axelle

The Best Wellness Planners For A New Year Of Fitness And Self-Care

luminesce skin care Whether or not you make goals, the beginning of another year ordinarily requires some sort of health update, be it wellness, diet, otherworldliness, mental or passionate heath—or all of the abovementioned. Fortunately, whenever you've set your 2022 aims, you don't need to go at it alone, on account of health organizers that assist you with following and keep steady over your objectives, propensities and everyday exercises. Regardless of whether you're setting aside a few minutes for routine taking care of oneself or standard exercises, the best wellbeing organizers ... [+] assist you with following and keep steady over your everyday exercises, propensities and objectives. ageless canada Straightforward Self From organizers to inspire and assist with keeping those glutes in excellent condition to plans that elevate less provocative ways of life to diaries that call for ordinary reflection, these are the most ideal choices for arranging and remaining foc