No Jab No Toy

Mayor Big Slow's pandemic response lab missed both Omicron and Delta variants

 Progress New York 

 The COVID-19 testing operation created in 2020 by Mayor Bill de Blasio (Working Families Party-NYC) when New York City was the epicenter of disease and death was supposed to lead the City out of uncertainty. Since then, the testing company has blossomed in testing contracts and worth, but its record of leading has been called into question after it was late in reporting the newest strain of the Coronavirus to threaten New York’s future : the Omicron variant.

As global worry has spread about the reported rapid rise in cases of the Omicron variant in Africa — a “heavily mutated” strain, which has led to border closings and travel bans amidst a new round of confinements — the world turned to Minnesota health officials to learn about the first case of Omicron in New York City. The silence from the City-created testing facility, the Pandemic Response Lab, did not go unnoticed by online critics of the Government’s pandemic response. Mayor de Blasio has been praising the Pandemic Response Lab since it’s creation, even as some media questioned the return on the City’s unknown investment in the company. Though Mayor de Blasio has hailed the testing being done by the Pandemic Response Lab for public schools as the “gold standard,” that claim was later rejected by a report published by the Gothamist news Web site.

After Progress New York made an interview request to the Pandemic Response Lab for this report, its parent company published a news release, announcing the sequencing of the lab’s first detection of the Omicron variant. Representatives from the parent company later promised to appear for an interview with Progress New York, but they never answered the request after inquiring about the subject of the interview.

Visit C’est Vrai to learn more about Pandemic Response Lab .

The Pandemic Response Lab has reportedly succeeded in cutting the time and cost it takes to process COVID-19 tests. Since it operates as a private sector business, its first order of business is profit, not the use of its funding to promote or protect the public health, regardless of cost.

The fortune-making from the Coronavirus pandemic has triggered accusations that the Government response to COVID-19 has led to large transfers of wealth. It’s unknown how much Government assistance the Pandemic Response Lab has received. It was created in 2020 by the City of New York’s corporate welfare arm, the New York City Economic Development Corporation. It began receiving testing contracts from the City’s public hospital system, and that has reportedly been expanded to include test contracts for individuals in the City’s jail system and the public school system.

As a result of its growth in Government contracts, the corporate owner of the Pandemic Response Lab, Opentrons Labworks Inc., was able to finance an expansion to Washington, DC ; Los Angeles, CA ; and Seattle, WA. In September, Opentrons secured $200 million in new investments by a team led by Softbank Group Corp., which valued the parent company at $1.8 billion, according to a report published by the Bloomberg news service. The pandemic has created a lot of wealth at Opentrons. Last year, the company’s valuation was only $90 million, according to the Bloomberg report, making its current valuation a 20-fold jump in worth.

The Pandemic Response Lab’s focus appears to be profit-making for its parent company. As a result, the City of New York was late in reporting the Delta variant. As revealed by Progress New York, the first time that the Delta variant was reported in New York City was in mid-May, in a retroactive disclosure in an overdue weekly variant sequencing study, even though the virus had by that time spread from India to Europe. Later, as the Delta variant was itself evolving into new sublineages, Progress New York noted that the City of New York was not reporting the AY.3 subvariant at a time when its spread was possibly threatening another confinement in the State of Israel.

The Blaz expands vaccine mandate for private companies despite recent judicial decisions deeming it unconsitutional.

 

NBC New York

 All private-sector workers in New York City will be subject to the mayor's vaccine mandate starting Dec. 27, affecting 184,000 businesses, while vaccine proof for indoor dining, fitness and entertainment will be required for children ages 5 to 11, according to a toughened vaccine mandate announced by Bill de Blasio Monday.

The current rule will also expand to require two vaccine doses instead of proof of only one as far as people age 12 and older are concerned, the mayor said. That excludes people who were vaccinated with Johnson & Johnson's single-dose shot.

Kids aged 5 to 11 only need to show proof of one dose when the requirement for them kicks in on Dec. 14, considering they only first became eligible for their initial doses in early November and must wait at least 21 days between Pfizer's doses.

De Blasio hinted late last week that changes to the city's vaccine policies could be coming soon, given the latest challenges posed in the city's ongoing COVID war. He says more measures may be imminent as far as vaccinations go, too.

"We’ve got Omicron as a new factor. We’ve got the colder weather which is going to really create additional challenges with the Delta variant, we’ve got holiday gatherings," de Blasio said Monday as he announced the mandate on MSNBC. "We in New York City have decided to use a preemptive strike to really do something bold to stop the further growth of COVID and the dangers it’s causing to all of us."

The mayor was also asked about his legal authority to implement such an all-encompassing vaccine mandate, especially given President Joe Biden's mandate for private employers with workforces of 100 or more employees has stalled in the courts. De Blasio said there is a "legal right of the health commissioner to keep the people of this city safe. That is something that's been proven time and time again."

"When the health commissioner believes there is a pressing public health threat, he has the ability to act in that situation," the mayor said of the "broad strokes."

His corporation counselor, Georgia Pestana, affirmed the legal authority of the city's health commissioner to implement such sweeping rules and said city and state courts have continuously upheld that concept amid a number of challenges these last few months.

Pestana said the issue the Biden administration faces "doesn't really apply here" because the injunctions were issued over the legal authority of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to manage mandate implementation in one case and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in another.

"Here, I don't believe there is any question that Dr. [Dave] Chokshi has the authority to issue this mandate and it's the across-the-board nature of it that I think also makes it defensible," Pestana said.

He said the city will issue additional enforcement and reasonable accommodation guidance to support small businesses with implementation on Dec. 15, about a week and a half before the mandate takes effect. Asked about potential consequences, de Blasio says some have to be in play. He didn't elaborate but he said few businesses have had to be penalized to date because of the rules.

For the city's workforce, noncompliance with the vaccine mandate in the absence of an approved exemption comes with unpaid leave. Some smaller private businesses may not have that capacity, de Blasio acknowledged, which is why he says his administration is taking the next nine days to work out details with them.

Looks like everyone now is under the purview of Dr. Chok. A shell of a man nobody elected. 

 

Governor Kathy brings the pandemic back to where it started based on speculation

NY Post 

Here we go again.

Gov. Kathy Hochul signed an executive order Friday to postpone elective hospital surgeries — something that hasn’t been done since the worst of the initial coronavirus outbreak last year.

Hochul said she made the move to deal with staffing shortages and boost bed capacity amid an anticipated “spike” in new cases and the emergence of the new Omicron variant in South Africa. The strain is named after a letter of the Greek alphabet.

“We’ve taken extraordinary action to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and combat this pandemic. However, we continue to see warning signs of spikes this upcoming winter, and while the new Omicron variant has yet to be detected in New York State, it’s coming,” Hochul said.

“In preparation, I am announcing urgent steps today to expand hospital capacity and help ensure our hospital systems can tackle any challenges posed by the pandemic as we head into the winter months. The vaccine remains one of our greatest weapons in fighting the pandemic, and I encourage every New Yorker to get vaccinated, and get the booster if you’re fully vaccinated.”

The edict curbing non-essential surgeries will kick in for hospitals with a limited capacity — defined as at or below 10 percent of available staffed bed capacity.

The new protocols will take effect on Friday, Dec. 3, and will be re-evaluated based on the latest COVID-19 data on Jan. 15.

Maybe Kath can ask Uncle Joe to send another battleship hospital to the Intrepid dock. Maybe we'll use it this time.