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COVID-19 VACCINES are expected to be made compulsory today for Los Angeles schoolchildren aged 12 and over, the first such requirement by a major education board in the United States.
The vote by the Los Angeles Unified School District – the second biggest in the country – comes as the nation grapples with surging coronavirus numbers, driven by the highly contagious Delta variant.
It also comes as US President Joe Biden is set to unveil vaccine mandates for federal employees, as part of a plan to wrestle the Covid caseload under control.
Around 600,000 students attend a public school managed by LAUSD, and the expected passage of the motion at today’s meeting could set a precedent for school boards across the country.
The district already mandates regular testing for children, and masks are required on campus, both indoors and out. Staff must be vaccinated.
Under the proposal, all children attending in-person classes would need to have their first dose by 21 November, and their second by 19 December.
A child who turns 12 will have 30 days to get their first shot.
The plan has the support of teachers’ unions and many parents, but - as elsewhere in the United States – a significant and vocal minority is strongly opposed to vaccines, despite overwhelming scientific evidence that they are safe and effective.
Local health officials say around 58% of those aged between 12 and 18 have had at least one shot.
The motion, which is expected to pass, says action is required to stem the rising number of infections among schoolchildren, which has threatened to derail a so-far successful return to classrooms after a lengthy hiatus last year.
Covid-19 “is a material threat to the health and safety of all students within the LAUSD community, and is a further threat to the successful return to continuous in-person instruction,” it says.
Vaccines, masks and other mitigation measures against Covid-19 have become deeply political issues in the United States.
Republican-led states and counties, citing personal freedoms, have resisted imposing rules that doctors say would protect their populations.
A free and widely available vaccine program is credited with taming earlier surges in the coronavirus, a disease that has claimed more than 650,000 lives and sickened millions more in the United States.
But Delta’s emergence has threatened to reverse progress, and case numbers have risen nationwide in recent months, concentrated in places where vaccine take-up is low.
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Half of the above are charlatans. Only Grudgiev, Lyons, McWilliams & Maynooth Prof are credible.
Tis all guessonomics!
We didn’t need the first one.
Shove it!!!
Mcwilliams? Seriously? If he was so certain of our collapse maybe he would have spent more time discussing that than his new catchphrase. Seriously go back and check what he spent his days talking about before the crash. F*cking ‘deckchair families ‘ sweatpants mummies’ and waynes world generations. He, compared to the torrent of paper space he commanded, barely talked about a potential crash.
The real question is, if he actually considers himself a reputable economist why did he not spend most of his time talking about the collapse of millions of Irish livelihoods? He was the only popular economist in the country! He either was guessing or didn’t care. Literally the only two possibilities.
Lyons hits it on the head:
“If you don’t want to be answerable in your public spending to anyone other than your citizens then balance your books and you won’t have to borrow.”
Everybody likes the sound of having the books balanced. But it would require “austerity” on a grand scale so no thanks. We´ll just keep borrowing and borrowing in the hopes that the guy we´re borrowing from will forget about the money.
Colm mccarthys comments are brainless… Noone can predict the future.
Rich coming from a man who has trousered a fortune from the taxpayer doing just that!
Mr Noone can predict the future!
What are you talking about? He did that job for a fiver… if the government went to an accountancy or a consultancy firm they would have been charged millions, Colm did it for a few thousand.
And that is a fair amount considering his expertise. If anything was brainless it was your comment.
Everyday it just seems to go from bad to worse. There just seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel, we are borrowing from Peter to pay Paul & its getting us nowhere. The country is on its knees.
I agree with Michael o leary. Hoping for a second bailout so that the imf will force the government to cut themselves because they are not gonna do it of their own accord.
Whether or not Ireland will need another bailout will depend on the state of the bond markets. We are doing all the right things to get our public finances in order and we are not going to default on existing bonds so re-entry into the bond maret will depend on others.
Personally I think we will remain in bailout until the Euro and the other debtor countries have sorted themselves out.
I’m not so sure about that Peter.
The recent McKinsey report (detailed in many of the papers yesterday) makes for eye-watering reading from an Irish perspective. Our total debt (public, private, household, etc) is at more than 6.5 times national income. More than twice the nearest delinquent Spain.
Total Irish debt is inflated by the Financial Institutions balances at 294% of GDP. This is influenced by the number of foreign institutions operating in the IFSC. Soveriegn debt at 85% of GDP is a concern as is household debt at 124%. Non financial corporate debt at 194% would be a worry but again I think this is artificially high reflecting stategic leveraging by the high number of FDI corporates in Ireland, particularly from the US.
It is difficult to choose another economy to measure ourselves against because of our ability to attract foreign direct investment across a number of business sectors. I would suggest that the nearest model to our own is the UK.
Peter it is not just the financial sector. The households and the corporate sector are up to the eyeballs too and much above the average of developed countries and above even the usual debtors UK and US.
The government says it is not going to happen……… So it is a given .
“SIPTU economist”. Ha.
Perhaps media outlets such as yourselves should begin posting something positive and instill some confidence, rather than continuously churning out crap like this! Every economist on your list has said the same thing!
Everyone except Gurdgiev and McWilliams are deluded. ‘Talk of the bailout is unhelpful’ – what is this? Is this an opinion of a university head of economics department??
Enough of the gloom get on with it, listening to these economists for too long now. People need to buckle down & make things happen for themselves & please stop thinking the government are going to do something for you do it yourself.
And the comment of Paul Sweeney of ICTU that the question is hypothetical is utter rubbish. If Ireland was about to be leveled by a giant meteorite the question would have been hypothetical but because it isn’t the question is fairly relevant and real. That is except maybe for ICTU beards who according to Sweeney’s own admission have ‘other things to worry about’ (i.e. how to keep the Croke Park zombie alive and pull a quick one in front of the general public pretending some progress is being made).
Government policies are killing growth. When the retail figures are out on this quarter, the reality will be laid bare. Job losses will roll on this year unfortunately. Tax revenue is shrinking and that has been the case for several years even after all the levies, band adjustments, etc. To keep the Croke Farce Agreement going, increasing amounts of shrinking tax revenue are needed. Eventually, the Farce must be closed down if the deficit is to be brought under control. The present trajectory leads inevitably to a second bailout. Few public sector economists will admit that openly, as it opens up uncomfortable questions about wage levels among the academic and teaching elites when businesses are struggling to keep their premises heated.
I’ve spoken to many in the retail sector over the past few days and the last few weeks have definetly been the worst that any of them have experienced in 30+ years of trading.
My comment is this: I would like to quote Walter Ulbricht, the East German head of State, commenting at a 1961 press conference when asked about his stance as to an East west border: “Nobody here intends to build a wall.” Watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjgKKOdVRx4
“It is ludicrous to say that Ireland will need a second bailout.” Will you believe it still after watching that?
A No vote will sort it all out one way or the other. Then there won’t be a cent left to pay the most senior guaranteed bondholder and Croke Park will be hit by an ICBM.
In the end you have to take the bottle away from the alcoholic!
It largely depends on factors outside of our control. We are doing everything that is being asked of us and meeting our targets but political inaction in the EU is putting all of that at risk.
If we do have to go the the EFSF for a further round of funding it would not be a total disaster. We would be getting money at less than normal market rates and would only require assisted funding for a year or two.
We are missing growth forecasts, tax intake is below the forecasts (masked to an extent with ‘once-off’ measures like the pension raid), the deficit is still a double XXL whopper with cheese, the only sector with some growth potential (export industry) is about to be fucked with another global crisis and the unemployment is stuck near 15%. What particular targets are being met??? I am afraid you are buying the government’s spin. Their statements on the subject are the work of pure fiction. Anybody who thinks Greece is an exception is deluded. Portugal is next and then Ireland. There is no such thing as ‘one cockroach’.
Looking at the response from McWilliams I realised that his comments to the Journal were made earlier this month and on this basis I wonder when the other interviews took place. Forecasting in economic terms requires a set of facts and a common set of assumptions. Could the author of this place validate the timing of the economists contributions to avoid the piece being meaningless.
Mark,
Apologies for the delay in responding to your query. Bar McWilliams, the interviews for this piece all took place within the last 7 days.
Hugh
Comments from such a group could never be conclusive, economics is one part, politics is another macroeconomics is another and microeconomics is finally where it hurts in the pocket . I wouldn’t bet on anything they say.none of them ever saw the downturn coming including Mc Williams who saw everything down turning, as always he had to be right sometime why didn’t he profit from it.
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