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Vaccine mandates in health care

Several states across the nation are enforcing mandates this week requiring health care workers to get vaccinated against COVID-19. And the consequences could be a shortage of health care workers as those who resist are fired, or suspended, or quit rather than get the vaccination. It is difficult to imagine that health care workers, who are trained in the science of health and healing arts, would be so opposed to vaccinations. The vast majority are already vaccinated but a significant number are choosing not to. If a hospital or nursing home loses 5% of its staff that’s bound to ...

Dollars and values

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was talking Sunday about plans for passing the trillions of dollars in infrastructure funding and President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” program. Pelosi promised that the $1 trillion infrastructure bill would pass this week, and that the $3.5 trillion spending bill would pass later, probably at a much lower cost. “We’ll see how the number comes down and what we need,” she said. “Again, the Senate and the House, those who are not in full agreement with the president, right, let’s see what our values — let’s not talk about numbers and ...

Vaccinations for kids

Pfizer, the company that produces one of the major COVID-19 vaccines, announced this week that its vaccine will work on children aged 5 to 12, and that it will seek approval from the government to begin offering vaccinations to children. The Pfizer vaccine is administered at smaller doses for children, but its immunization is as strong as those received by older children receiving full doses. If this Pfizer vaccine is approved, it will be good news for parents who worry about sending their children to school, where they may come into contact with the virus. That is a risk that is ...

We’re caught between high stakes negotiations

Some mighty high-stakes poker is being played in our nation’s capital these days, with the nation’s fiscal future hanging in the balance. On Tuesday, the House of Representatives voted to approve a federal debt limit and funding continuation plan that would allow the government to remain open when the U.S. fiscal year ends on Sept. 30. It passed on a 220-211 party line vote. It now has to go through the evenly-divided Senate, where Republicans are firmly against, and the Democrats can’t afford to lose one vote, and where Republicans can block with a filibuster that can’t be ...

Without the UN, what?

Over the years we have been critical of the United Nations for a variety of reasons. It has often been hamstrung in times of crisis; it has often catered to dictatorships and tyrants; it has made a mockery of human rights issues by putting some of the worst offending nations on commissions intended to deal with those issues. But as the UN begins its annual General Assembly this week, we have to remark that without the UN, where would we be? Where else can leaders of the world’s nations stand up and declare their agendas, state their grievances, call for changes and demand action ...

Haiti no place to send refugees

The U.S. is in the process of deporting thousands of Haitian refugees who have gathered at the Texas border, sending them back to a country that has little to offer them. Haiti is the western hemisphere’s poorest nation. It has been ravaged by major earthquakes not once, but twice in the past 11 years, once in 2010 and again this year. The earthquakes have been followed by hurricanes and tropical storms. The country is in the midst of political upheaval, its president recently assassinated, its military trying to set up a government. Its streets are run by violent gangs. Most of ...