Categories
Crisis Public Health Research

1 in 6 Americans live in areas with significant wildfire risk – do you know your risk to wildfire?

1 in 6 Americans live in areas with significant wildfire risk – do you know your city’s risk for wildfire?

Latest modeling built by First Street Foundation shows estimates for America in 2052 along with developing a public estimation tool labeled Fire Factor. The First Street Foundation Wildfire Model incorporates information on fuels, wildfire weather, and ignition into a Fire Behavior Model, building upon and updating the 2016 U.S. Forest Service dataset. Last year, First Street Foundation reported about flood risk in the United States to grow exponentially in upcoming years due to climate change.

Did you know that supporting wildfire suppression at the local, state, and federal levels in the United States is among the most expensive wildfire protection efforts?

Currently, it is costing the US government about $2.0 billion annually. These costs are projected to increase, as recently modeling shows an increased risk to more areas, including areas where fire risks were not historically present but now are.

Categories
COVID-19 Pandemic Public Health

“No jab, No job” – latest on vaccine mandate in workplace

“No jab, No job” is being passed around the workplaces this week. Announcement is from Citi to adopt a COVID-19 vaccine mandate policy, marking first major bank with such policy.

Categories
COVID-19 Pandemic Public Health

Retail shops reducing hours due to surging COVID-19 cases

Happy New Year! Last year ended with ongoing debate and even backlash about the COVID-19 vaccine mandates at many companies to help curb new infections at workplace. This year opened with retailers reducing hours regardless of vaccine status.

Categories
COVID-19 Pandemic Public Health

SUSPENDED? OSHA pauses Emergency Temporary Standard for businesses

The enforcement of COVID-19 vaccine mandate for businesses is now suspended by U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, pending further court order.

Timeline of events: less than 2 months ago, news emerged about President Biden’s plans for large businesses (>100 employees) to have employees vaccinated for COVID-19 or undergo weekly testing. Less than 2 weeks ago, U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced January 4, 2022 as deadline to meet this requirement, labeling it as an Emergency Temporary Standard (https://publichealthdisasters.com/2021/11/12/new-us-covid-19-requirement-for-100-employees/).

Categories
COVID-19 Pandemic Public Health

Growing Tensions Over COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates

What will cut the tensions over COVID-19 vaccines and various mandates placed by governments, businesses and institutions?

With many returning to the office, the growing tensions between the ‘vaxxed and unvaxxed’ continue to build. Spilling over this tension is now the decisions made by governments, businesses and institutions in instilling COVID-19 vaccine mandates. For example, 40% of Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents in the nation’s airports and thousands of pilots have not reported their status with the deadline just weeks away (NBC News).

Categories
COVID-19 Pandemic Public Health

Which COVID-19 Mandates to Follow?

Could politics, healthcare, and business decisions still provide good health outcomes to communities?

Implementation of President Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine requirement for federal contractors has now caught companies in between politics between State-level and National-level. The Governor of Texas, Governor Greg Abbott, has signed an executive order this week to now ban COVID-19 vaccine mandates given by companies. This is in-contest to the President Biden’s executive order given on September 9. 2021 about COVID-19 vaccine requirement.

Categories
COVID-19 Pandemic Public Health

Workplace COVID-19 vaccine mandates working?

Opting in to COVID-19 vaccine mandates at your company? Strategy working to curb new infections at workplace?

COVID-19 cases in the United States have dropped by 25% over the last two weeks (Axios).

Categories
COVID-19 Pandemic Public Health

COVID-19 Vaccine requirement coming soon at your company?

COVID-19 vaccine or testing requirement coming soon at your company?

Recent news emerged that President Biden will be implementing a requirement for large businesses (>100 employees) to have employees vaccinated for COVID-19 or undergo weekly testing. If weekly testing occurs, details have yet to be released to whether the employer will have to cover the cost of weekly testing or the unvaccinated employees could use the free federal sites or would have to pay out of pocket.