vaccination

The perception that the response to the monkeypox virus in the South has lacked coordination has rekindled familiar concerns about recent state policies that leave members of the region’s LGBTQ+ communities feeling marginalized and discriminated against. More urgently, it raises questions about whether state and local health departments are doing enough to protect the people principally affected by the virus: men who have sex with men.

Coast Guard Academy officials and a lawyer for several cadets are disputing each other's accounts of what happened to seven students who were forced to leave the Connecticut campus by Aug. 19, after refusing to be vaccinated against COVID-19. The New London academy said Thursday that it helped the students with their travel expenses and all seven are living in safe locations. The statement contradicted comments made earlier this week by Michael Rose, a lawyer for several of the cadets. Rose says the academy is only reimbursing the students for their travel expenses and one of the cadets was forced to live in his truck.

This week Bobbi Conner talks with Dr. Marvella Ford about a statewide project to increase HPV vaccination in children in underserved communities of South Carolina. Dr. Ford is a Professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences and she’s the Associate Director of Population Sciences and Cancer Disparities at Hollings Cancer Center at MUSC.

This week Bobbi Conner talks with Dr. Marvella Ford about a statewide project to increase HPV vaccination in children in underserved communities of South Carolina. Dr. Ford is a Professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences and she’s the Associate Director of Population Sciences and Cancer Disparities at Hollings Cancer Center at MUSC.

A former nursing director has pleaded guilty to lying to federal agents about providing fake COVID-19 vaccination cards. Authorities say they got a complaint last September that Tammy Huston McDonald filled out cards last summer for people she knew were not vaccinated. Federal agents then confronted the Columbia, South Carolina, nurse in October and said she falsely claimed that she had never given anyone a fake vaccination card. Now she faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. U.S. Attorney Corey Ellis says that as a registered nurse, she knew better and owed more to her community.

A second set of states has filed a federal lawsuit challenging the Biden administration's COVID-19 vaccine mandate for health care workers. The suit filed in Louisiana on behalf of 12 states was dated Monday. It comes less than a week after another lawsuit challenging the rule was filed in Missouri by a coalition of 10 states. Both lawsuits say the rule issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services violates federal law and unconstitutionally encroaches on powers reserved to the states. In addition to Louisiana, the latest suit covers Montana, Arizona, Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah and West Virginia.

Republican governors, lawmakers and attorneys general are forming a wall of opposition to President Joe Biden's plan to require vaccinations or COVID-19 testing at all private employers of 100 workers or more. They have adopted laws to exempt employers in their state, filed lawsuits and in some cases are ensuring that workers who are fired for refusing a vaccine will have access to unemployment insurance. They question the constitutionality of the federal regulation, saying the federal workplace safety agency does not have the power to impose vaccine mandates. The Biden administration says it does.

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster says he plans to issue an executive order keeping his cabinet agencies from enforcing a federal mandate requiring companies with more than 100 employees to either have their workers vaccinated or tested for COVID-19 weekly. The Republican governor says he thinks the federal order is not legal and he is stunned by the overreach of Democratic President Joe Biden's administration. The federal rules require all companies with more than 100 employees to either have their workers vaccinated or tested for COVID-19 weekly and wear masks.

The Biden administration is threatening to revoke the authority for three Republican-controlled states to handle their own workplace safety regulations because they have refused to adopt rules to protect health care workers from COVID-19. The threats were sent to Arizona, South Carolina and Utah as the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration prepares to adopt much more far-reaching vaccination and testing rules affecting 80 million Americans.

The operator of a sprawling federal nuclear reservation in South Carolina says the vast majority of its 5,500 workers are now fully vaccinated against COVID-19 after the company mandated the shots. But nearly 80 Savannah River Site employees who have refused to get inoculated sued Savannah River Nuclear Solutions over the requirement in South Carolina state court Thursday. Employees who don't get inoculated against the highly contagious virus face firing. The federal contractor says 95% of its workers have gotten the shots ahead of a fall deadline so far. Gov. Henry McMaster says he won't issue an executive order to stop South Carolina businesses from requiring vaccines.