It is becoming increasingly difficult to determine what is real in this world. I woke up this morning to this tweet with a headline clip that says, “Hospitals in California are allowing employees with coronavirus to continue working as long as they don’t have symptoms, because they are short of staff, after the state’s vaccine mandates resulted in hundreds of health care workers being suspended or fired.:”
I thought, “no way this is real.” But, then I remembered the absurdity of the world we are living in.
Vaccine Mandate
The California Department of Public Health released a vaccination order that came out in early August 2020 with a Sept. 30, 2020 implementation date. It applied to all workers at health care facilities and required that “all health care workers must be vaccinated to reduce the chance of transmission to vulnerable populations.” It didn’t matter if you worked the parking garage or scraped gum off the sidewalks, if it was at a healthcare facility, it was still applicable to you.
And this is after the CDC Director, Rochelle Walensky, admits that what the vaccines “can't do anymore is prevent transmission.”
California-based, Kaiser Permanente, one of the largest integrated managed care consortiums, suspended 2,200 of its employees nationwide over a vaccine mandate. Kaiser said, “the number of unvaccinated workers is declining each day.” Ya, think?!
UCLA anesthesiologist, Dr. Chris Rake, was escorted out of the UCLA medical plaza in October and placed on unpaid administrative leave for refusing to get vaccinated. The doctor made a stand,
“This is what happens when you stand up for freedom, and when you show up to work, willing to work, despite being unvaccinated, and this is the price you have to pay sometimes.”
There doesn’t seem to be much data out there on the number of healthcare workers “suspended” due to the vaccine mandates, particularly in California … at least not yet. Perhaps because it is an embarrassing statistic for those that advocate such a thing … which unfortunately, seems like the entire world.
Come to Work Infected
So that leads us to the current day in Bizarro World. The “temporary” guidance (AFL 21-08.7) released by the California Department of Public Health states “in the context of vaccination and booster doses,”
From January 8, 2022 until February 1, 2022, [Healthcare personnel (HCP)] who test positive for SARS-CoV-2 and are asymptomatic, may return to work immediately without isolation and without testing, and HCPs who have been exposed and are asymptomatic may return to work immediately without quarantine and without testing. These HCPs must wear an N95 respirator for source control.
Local KCRA 3 (NBC) reports,
The California Nurses Association has opposed the move and Newsom was asked about whether his policies are causing COVID-19 confusion since he’s previously talked about the asymptomatic spread of the virus.
Newsom said that at this phase of the pandemic the state needed to “be flexible” to deal with the latest challenge.
“It’s called dealing with reality,” he said. “The pragmatism, not what you want, but what you need to do at a time of challenge and constraints and scarcity as it relates to resources and resources we're competing with across the country.
One can only laugh at Newsom’s call for pragmatism after his call for vaccine mandates. Newsom continues to amuse with his artful projections,
But Newsom said that by Friday the state anticipated a higher total hospitalization census than was the case at the peak of the pandemic last year. COVID-19 cases could go as high as 23,000 by Feb. 2, above last January's peak, he said.
He noted the projection was "art, not science" and said "it’s manageable but it’s challenging.”
“Art, not science,” he says. Yeah, no shit, Sherlock. But, wait it gets better.
Dr. Mark Ghaly, California’s health and human services secretary, told KCRA 3 …The policy also doesn’t signify a shift in how experts believe omicron is spread among people who are asymptomatic, he said. …
“We see a lot many vaccinated, even boosted individuals who become infected,” he said. “They don’t have symptoms or at least not recognizable symptoms. They are infectious for a period.”
I know I can’t be the only one to see the flames of irony in that statement.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not against infected workers taking care of infected people. I am against the absurdity of barring non-infected, unvaccinated people from choosing to help sick people. It is ludicrous, destructive, and downright cruel.