I live near Washington, D.C. and most people here work for the US government in one way or another. The new thing that the government is implementing for building access is being referred to as an “attestation form” although the actual form that I saw has “Certification of Vaccination” as the title. The form I saw has an Office of Management and Budget control number and an expiration date in February of 2022. You are asked to check off one of 4 boxes and sign the form. The four boxes are: 1) I am fully vaccinated, 2) I am not yet fully vaccinated 3) I have not been vaccinated, and 4) I decline to respond. A person I know was visiting a US Federal Government building last week and was required to fill out the form to enter. He was told by the guard at the door, no form, no entry, and apparently that applies to everyone including employees, contractors, and visitors. He told the guard, I am not vaccinated and the guard replied, “I don’t want to know.” He filled out the form, checking the 4th box, “I decline to respond” and tried to hand the form back to the guard. The guard refused to take the form and said, “Just keep it with you, in case anyone asks.” No one did. The form is 4 pages long and it says, among other things, that if you check any box other than “I am fully vaccinated” then you are required to have taken a test within the past 72 hours showing you are negative for Covid 19. But the government agency the person was visiting doesn’t do any testing and no one asked for any test results. It appeared that the guards at the door are not allowed to ask for test results. The person told me that he had taken a Covid test within the required 72 hours in case anyone asked. He said you can buy a two pack of tests at CVS for around $25 and it is easy: you just pour a solution into a tray (or something like that) and get a result. I said, but you have to stick the Q-tip thing up your nose, right? He said, uh yeah, sure…. I was given a briefing by another government agency who is planning to implement the “attestation form” and was told that home testing would be fine for anyone who was required to be tested and that the Biden administration has said that it will pay for all testing. I can only imagine the Rube Goldberg mechanisms that will be put in place for the test reimbursement scheme. Companies will probably have to hire another admin person to process expense claims for home tests purchased for people who visit government buildings. One last thing: in the briefing that I got on the attestation form, the briefer admitted that Covid cases were way up in government buildings, and many were “breakthrough” cases, i.e., people who were fully vaccinated are getting sick. Someone asked, what if I fill out the attestation form saying I am vaccinated and then I get sick? The response was, “Your status doesn’t change.” It looks like the government knows they have to appear to be doing something about the rise in Covid cases in their buildings and they can’t mandate vaccination (except for the military, and we have yet to see how that will work out – the requirement date is this month. It is not looking good). So the government is doing this form, which is meaningless, and mandating testing, which is done at home by people who may or may not actually be testing themselves, and they are not testing the vaccinated, who may be sick and be spreading Covid to others. Potemkin government.
Potemkin government
A person I know was visiting a US Federal Government building last week and was required to fill out the form to enter. He was told by the guard at the door, no form, no entry, and apparently that applies to everyone including employees, contractors, and visitors. He told the guard, I am not vaccinated and the guard replied, “I don’t want to know.” He filled out the form, checking the 4th box, “I decline to respond” and tried to hand the form back to the guard. The guard refused to take the form and said, “Just keep it with you, in case anyone asks.” No one did.
The form is 4 pages long and it says, among other things, that if you check any box other than “I am fully vaccinated” then you are required to have taken a test within the past 72 hours showing you are negative for Covid 19. But the government agency the person was visiting doesn’t do any testing and no one asked for any test results. It appeared that the guards at the door are not allowed to ask for test results. The person told me that he had taken a Covid test within the required 72 hours in case anyone asked. He said you can buy a two pack of tests at CVS for around $25 and it is easy: you just pour a solution into a tray (or something like that) and get a result. I said, but you have to stick the Q-tip thing up your nose, right? He said, uh yeah, sure….
I was given a briefing by another government agency who is planning to implement the “attestation form” and was told that home testing would be fine for anyone who was required to be tested and that the Biden administration has said that it will pay for all testing. I can only imagine the Rube Goldberg mechanisms that will be put in place for the test reimbursement scheme. Companies will probably have to hire another admin person to process expense claims for home tests purchased for people who visit government buildings.
One last thing: in the briefing that I got on the attestation form, the briefer admitted that Covid cases were way up in government buildings, and many were “breakthrough” cases, i.e., people who were fully vaccinated are getting sick. Someone asked, what if I fill out the attestation form saying I am vaccinated and then I get sick? The response was, “Your status doesn’t change.”
It looks like the government knows they have to appear to be doing something about the rise in Covid cases in their buildings and they can’t mandate vaccination (except for the military, and we have yet to see how that will work out – the requirement date is this month. It is not looking good). So the government is doing this form, which is meaningless, and mandating testing, which is done at home by people who may or may not actually be testing themselves, and they are not testing the vaccinated, who may be sick and be spreading Covid to others. Potemkin government.