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U.S. Won't Impose New Omicron Testing For Travelers From Southern Africa

U.S. Won't Impose New Omicron Testing For Travelers From Southern Africa

By Peter Szekely and David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. health officials have not imposed any new screening or tracing requirements in response to the newly discovered Omicron COVID-19 variant that prompted the Biden administration to restrict travel from southern Africa.

Starting Monday, the United States will bar most foreign travelers from South Africa and seven other southern African countries in an attempt to curb the spread of the Omicron variant, which was first identified in South Africa on Friday.

However, the travel restrictions do not ban flights or apply to U.S. citizens and lawful U.S. permanent residents. Until the ban starts at 12:01 ET Monday, flights from South Africa have continued to carry foreign nationals.

Airline passengers entering the United States from abroad are already subject to stringent CDC COVID-19 vaccination and testing requirements, but are not generally monitored by health officials after they leave flights and are not required to take a COVID-19 test upon arrival in the United States.

Nearly all foreign nationals entering the U.S. need to be vaccinated to enter but Americans do not need to be vaccinated to return home.

Delta Air Lines and United Airlines, the two airlines that fly direct to Johannesburg said on Friday they do not plan any changes to their South Africa-U.S. flights after the variant was discovered.

Fully vaccinated travelers must provide proof of negative COVID-19 tests taken within three days of their departure but those not fully vaccinated must have had a negative test result within one day.

The CDC did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on how its requirements are enforced, or if it will issue additional requirements since the emergence of the Omicron variant prompted the U.S. travel restrictions.

No cases of the Omicron variant were identified in the United States as of Friday, the CDC has said. But infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said this weekend it was likely already in the United States.

The CDC said Friday it expects to identify the B.1.1.529 variant quickly if it emerges in the United States.

United currently operates five flights per week between Newark and Johannesburg. Delta operates three from Johannesburg to Atlanta.

Two flights from South Africa that landed in the Netherlands Friday had 13 passengers with the Omicron variant on board, Dutch authorities said Sunday, and cases are being discovered in countries around the world.

The Netherlands Omicron cases were among 61 who tested positive for COVID-19 out of about 600 passengers on the two flights.

A spokesperson for KLM, the Dutch arm of Air France, said the passengers on the flight had either tested negative or shown proof of vaccination before getting on planes in Cape Town and Johannesburg.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose, Peter Szekely, David Shepardson; Editing by Heather Timmons and Diane Craft)

‘They Work’: Biden Urges Employers To Hasten Vaccine Mandates

‘They Work’: Biden Urges Employers To Hasten Vaccine Mandates

Reprinted with permission from DailyKos

President Joe Biden on Thursday pressed companies to put COVID-19 vaccination mandates into place while the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) completes a new rule requiring companies with more than 100 employees to mandate vaccination or routine testing.
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Why Corporations Are Leading On Vaccine Mandates

Why Corporations Are Leading On Vaccine Mandates

Public health is normally the responsibility of government officials and agencies. But the rampaging delta variant of COVID-19 has shown public institutions to be inadequate to the task. So it may be up to the private sector to do the heavy lifting.

Early in the pandemic, the urgent danger forced governors and mayors to take drastic actions that many citizens resented — closing businesses, issuing stay-at-home orders and mandating masks. But the arrival of vaccines sharply curtailed the virus, allowing life to return to near-normal. Even though this virulent variant has sent infections and hospitalizations soaring, public officials are leery of the opposition that new requirements might provoke.

President Joe Biden has shied away from putting any mandates on ordinary Americans, for obvious reasons. When he raised the idea of a door-to-door outreach initiative to encourage vaccinations, Republicans reacted as if the Gestapo were coming to drag people out of their beds. Treading lightly is part of Biden's attempt to restore calm after the nonstop turbulence of the previous four years.

He did issue an order requiring federal employees to either get vaccinated or wear masks and undergo regular testing. But that's not so controversial — if only because the GOP's anti-government zealots don't worry much about inconveniencing Washington bureaucrats.

The mandate will help stem the spread of the disease. But public employees make up just 15 percent of the U.S. workforce. The vast majority of Americans work in the private sector. Fortunately, capitalists can act with greater freedom and less political controversy than governments can.

Some of them are not waiting for brave statesmanship from politicians. A host of corporations have decided that when it comes to boosting vaccinations, they need more than gentle encouragement.

The Walt Disney Co. announced that all salaried and nonunion workers must be vaccinated. Walmart Inc. is requiring inoculations for everyone at its headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas. Google and Facebook are doing likewise at their U.S. campuses. Tyson Foods will insist that its 120,000 employees get their shots.

Chicago real estate firm Related Midwest is giving its employees a choice between getting a vaccination and getting a pink slip. United Airlines and Delta Air Lines Inc. will insist on shots for new hires. Hundreds of private (as well as public) colleges and universities have told students and faculty to be vaccinated in time for the fall term.

Some Republican officials are trumpeting their rejection of "vaccine passports," of the sort decreed by New York City for employees and customers of restaurants, bars, fitness centers and performance venues. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida signed a bill forbidding businesses to ask customers for proof of vaccination. Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas barred companies that get state funds from imposing such rules.

But even in the GOP, there seems to be no fervent desire to tell businesses what to do. Meddling in conditions of private employment would be conspicuously incompatible with the usual (and usually sound) conservative approach to economic matters.

That's why it's not likely to catch on, even in places where vaccine resistance is most rabid. Republican officeholders seldom embrace policies that antagonize the business community, which accounts for a lot of campaign contributions. Their customary view is that if workers don't like how their employers operate, they are welcome to exercise their God-given right to find another job.

Companies in red states are happily accustomed to operating without a lot of bossy-pants government. They also rarely have to deal with unions, which might push back on mandatory vaccinations.

In Democratic states, of course, policymakers have made a priority of getting the vaccine into people's arms, not indulging those who think it contains a microchip. Even diehard progressives might rather defer to the titans of industry if it means saving lives.

So if businesses are inclined to impose vaccine mandates, no one is going to stop them. And more companies are likely to impose them.

Most adults are already immunized, and many will think they deserve to be protected from irresponsible co-workers. In a labor market where many employers are having trouble finding workers, a vaccine requirement would probably attract more applicants than it would repel.

Elected officials may not want to insist that Americans take this simple step to protect others as well as themselves. But if they aren't willing to lead, they shouldn't stand in the way of those who are.

Follow Steve Chapman on Twitter @SteveChapman13 or at https://www.facebook.com/stevechapman13. To find out more about Steve Chapman and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell

McConnell’s Political Threat To Corporations Is Backfiring

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

Apparently Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's threat to corporations to "stay out of politics" didn't have the result he intended. Big business seems to be getting more serious about pushing back as Republicans continue to push voter suppression measures in states across the country. More than 100 top corporate executives joined a Zoom call Saturday to discuss how to apply pressure against such legislation, The Washington Post reports.

Companies represented included Delta, American, United, Starbucks, Target, LinkedIn, Levi Strauss, and Boston Consulting Group, as well as Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank, the Post reports, and the discussion included "potential ways to show they opposed the legislation, including by halting donations to politicians who support the bills and even delaying investments in states that pass the restrictive measures."

The call, which lasted over an hour, "shows they are not intimidated by the flak. They are not going to be cowed," according to one of its organizers, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a Yale management professor. "They felt very strongly that these voting restrictions are based on a flawed premise and are dangerous."

That "flawed premise" is in fact Donald Trump's big lie, which even Georgia Republican Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan has made clear, saying on CNN, "This is really the fallout from the 10 weeks of misinformation that flew in from former President Donald Trump."

Before Georgia passed the instantly notorious voter suppression law that started the blowback from corporations, some top Georgia businesses worked behind the scenes to try to blunt the bill's worst provisions. But once the law passed, they saw that that wasn't going to cut it, prompting the more public corporate opposition to attacks on voting rights.

Republicans in Georgia responded to that corporate opposition with threats of retaliation, including a failed (for now) attempt to strip Delta Air Lines of a major tax break. In Texas, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick claimed: "Texans are fed up with corporations that don't share our values trying to dictate public policy." And, of course, there was that "warning" from McConnell, though he quickly tried to walk it back a little when he saw how badly it played.

All this—the voter suppression measures that prompt blowback, the sudden turn against their usual corporate allies—comes because, first, Donald Trump lost and couldn't admit it and made it an article of faith for his base that elections are being stolen, and second, because Republicans know that their electoral future depends on making it harder to vote, especially for Black and brown people, low-income people, and young people.

Democrats, meanwhile, are trying to protect the right to vote and expand access to voting, from Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms trying to mitigate the impact of the new Georgia anti-voting law to House Democrats passing historic voting reforms—which, of course, Senate Republicans are blocking. But this can't be framed as a partisan fight. It's about whether the United States really values its democracy. Whether voting is a right that all eligible people can equally access, or a privilege easily extended to some while others are forced to overcome barrier after barrier to use it. Whether our voting laws are made in the name of justice or in the name of Trump's big lie. If you're on the wrong side of that, it's not a routine partisan issue. It's a stain on your name and on your soul.