Bigger shift; this isn't an editorial. A genuine morning news interview on why it would be folly to booster everyone. He actually states it is settled science transmission prevention is gone after 1-3 months.
On Friday I had to confront my whole council about illegally trying to restrict access to town hall to Green Pass holders; using exactly the evidence that vaccinated people are just as infectious as unvaccinated. I used that to argue against testing requirements for unvaxxed when they brought in staff vaccination mandates, too - that we could be sued for using words like "safe workplace" and prevent transmission" the moment vaccinated people got each other sick. So now my tongue will be bleeding from the need to say nothing else while those who told me they rely on data, not ideology, to make decisions, not so quietly go more insane. We were told we were never going to test, though; in BC you need to jump through a lot of hoops to register as a certified testing facility, because public health is smart enough to know people wouldn't actually do the home tests, or do them incorrectly. Also - we don't have the medical personnel to process testing for society in general, anymore, which is why they're moving away from testing just about anyone outside hospital anymore.
Interestingly or ominously, the highest level staff were against introducing mandates for the town because they were keeping track of the legal opinion, and our lawyers said the lawsuits were rolling in. The postie union is grieving the mandates at Canada Post, for example. They also said they knew we'd lose senior staff if we did, and up to 10% in general, which really surprised me, here.
Then the next week they did it anyway, so pressure came from outside our organization - peer government? Higher level? Not sure. At this point the regional government and most munis have implemented mandates for staff, which could get very unfortunate for our water supply and sewage systems next year.
All they could do was essentially put so many options for flexible and modified work no one could be fired. We are the only muni that took that approach, though, so far as I know - everyone else chose the nuclear option.
I was assured by senior staff that, indeed, we were _not_ insured in the event that we voluntarily required medical procedures that may harm staff and were not required for them to do their jobs to existing Worksafe standards. "We aren't insured for any of this, it's completely outside municipal charter". That made some on council go very very still, and others suggest we could not make decisions based on ideology, but on the public's expectations we take into account the well-being of everyone. I'll let you guess what they actually meant by that ;-)
But yeah, it better pop slowly to give some people an out to save face, or else they're going to nuts while they still have quite a bit of political power. I'm hoping their power will drain out (Tire le bouchon, fiston! says my kid's Robert Munsch book) and then they can go nuts... Because they're going to go nuts, no question.
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branchandroot
Re: A Glimmer of Hope in Canada?
Date: 2021-11-15 07:11 pm (UTC)https://globalnews.ca/news/8373612/neil-rau-covid-19-vaccine-booster/
On Friday I had to confront my whole council about illegally trying to restrict access to town hall to Green Pass holders; using exactly the evidence that vaccinated people are just as infectious as unvaccinated. I used that to argue against testing requirements for unvaxxed when they brought in staff vaccination mandates, too - that we could be sued for using words like "safe workplace" and prevent transmission" the moment vaccinated people got each other sick. So now my tongue will be bleeding from the need to say nothing else while those who told me they rely on data, not ideology, to make decisions, not so quietly go more insane. We were told we were never going to test, though; in BC you need to jump through a lot of hoops to register as a certified testing facility, because public health is smart enough to know people wouldn't actually do the home tests, or do them incorrectly. Also - we don't have the medical personnel to process testing for society in general, anymore, which is why they're moving away from testing just about anyone outside hospital anymore.
Interestingly or ominously, the highest level staff were against introducing mandates for the town because they were keeping track of the legal opinion, and our lawyers said the lawsuits were rolling in. The postie union is grieving the mandates at Canada Post, for example. They also said they knew we'd lose senior staff if we did, and up to 10% in general, which really surprised me, here.
Then the next week they did it anyway, so pressure came from outside our organization - peer government? Higher level? Not sure. At this point the regional government and most munis have implemented mandates for staff, which could get very unfortunate for our water supply and sewage systems next year.
All they could do was essentially put so many options for flexible and modified work no one could be fired. We are the only muni that took that approach, though, so far as I know - everyone else chose the nuclear option.
I was assured by senior staff that, indeed, we were _not_ insured in the event that we voluntarily required medical procedures that may harm staff and were not required for them to do their jobs to existing Worksafe standards. "We aren't insured for any of this, it's completely outside municipal charter". That made some on council go very very still, and others suggest we could not make decisions based on ideology, but on the public's expectations we take into account the well-being of everyone. I'll let you guess what they actually meant by that ;-)
But yeah, it better pop slowly to give some people an out to save face, or else they're going to nuts while they still have quite a bit of political power. I'm hoping their power will drain out (Tire le bouchon, fiston! says my kid's Robert Munsch book) and then they can go nuts... Because they're going to go nuts, no question.