December 2, 2021
President Biden just unveiled a new national strategy to deal with Covid19 – especially in light of the emergence of the Omicron variant in this country.
What’s does that mean for you? There’s a lot in today’s announcement. I’ve broken it down into these four categories.
One — so let’s start with travel –
For domestic travel on planes, trains, buses and all forms of public transportation. The mask mandate has been extended through March 18th of 2022. The TSA will continue to enforce the mask mandate and will double their fines for non-compliance.
All international travelers – including American citizens – who are entering the United States regardless of vaccination status – starting early next week– must provide a negative Covid19 test within one day of departure from the foreign country into the United States. All non-US citizens entering the United States must also provide proof of vaccination.
Two –boosters —
The White House is pushing booster shots. All federal employees will receive paid time off to get their booster and the President is also asking your private employer to do the same. The White House has also announced more access to those boosters through your local pharmacies, through newly set up family vaccination clinics, and a new partnership with AARP to reach out to boost seniors.
Three testing —
The White House wants to provide free at-home Covid19 tests. For those who aren’t covered by private insurance – free at-home tests will be distributed through rural clinics, local health centers and community sites. For those with insurance, you’ll eventually be reimbursed by your insurance company for buying the at-home tests. The government will issue more details on how that will work by January 15.
Lastly vaccines –
First the white house announced 1.2 billion vaccine doses will be donated to other countries to try and slow the mutations and virus spread.
As for mandates — the President said he is not announcing any new vaccine mandates…but as the federal vaccine mandates for all different sectors of workers including federal contractors, those under the c-m-s mandate, and osha’s mandate, go through the courts, he’s encouraging private businesses to implement their own vaccine mandates as a term of employment.
I know lots of you will say how can that be, if they’re going through the court? Because the courts are ultimately determining – does the *federal government have the authority to mandate a vaccine? As I have told you all along, your *employer *can* mandate a vaccine as a term of employment *unless* there is a state law or mandate that bans a vaccine mandate or you’ve been granted a medical or religious exemption.
Read the new Biden Administration Covid19 policy here.
PLUS
No government shutdown tomorrow.
After a day filled with Capitol Hill drama the House and Senate both passed a Continuing Resolution to keep the government funded until February 18th.
The house vote was 221 to 212.
The senate vote was 69-28.
There was an amendment to this Continuing Resolution brought to the Senate floor by Senators Marshall and Lee that – if passed would have defunded enforcement of the President’s OSHA vaccine mandate. That amendment failed 50 to 48.
Though the house and senate did ultimately pass the Continuing Resolution and they avoided tomorrow’s scheduled government shutdown, this is definitely an example of Congress kicking the can down the road. Because unless lawmakers can come up with a government funding plan before February 18th we will be having this fight all over again.
And also – we aren’t out of the woods yet. This was arguable the easiest task congress has to tackle before the end of the year.
They still need to either raise or suspend the debt ceiling to avoid a federal debt default scheduled for December 15th, they need to pass the National Defense Authorization Act before December 31st and Senate Democrats want to pass the Build Back Better bill by Christmas.
Buckle up – December is going to be bumpy.
