Coronavirus and Walt Disney World general discussion

[matt9112]

Someone said - No freedom is absolute and your safety is where freedom ends.

Someone was wrong. Safety....national security....the ultimate "need".

 

[GoofGoof]

Ftfy

OSHA was created by an act of Congress with the passing of a bill. The authority given to OSHA was defined by that bill. There’s no way to argue that OSHA enacting a rule, which is well within their authority to do, is somehow the executive branch creating a law that hasn‘t been voted on. If we want to argue that OSHA should not have that authority to regulate workplace safety well then Congress would need to pass legislation limiting that authority and removing their ability to set safety standards. You are incorrectly making it out like this plan is an executive order from the executive branch when it isn’t.

 

[lazyboy97o]

You are incorrectly making it out like this plan is an executive order from the executive branch when it isn’t.

Dude, yes it is, and denying it is just dishonest. OSHA is part of the executive branch so anything they do is from the executive branch. The agency is acting because they were told to do so in an executive order.

 

[disneygeek90]

But….. with the low rate of vaccinated having symptoms or issues, how do we know what the true breakthrough number is? How many have a breakthrough case but stopped being tested or stopped masking because they think they don’t have to worry? How many felt mildly ill but ignored it because they were fully vaccinated? How do we know how many vaccinated might be casting if they show zero symptoms? Numbers and studies on the true amount of breakthroughs are limited and incomplete.

All I’m saying is that the vaccinated need to stop thinking they and their loved ones are invincible just like the anti-Vaxx crew thinks the same. No one yet understands how this virus really moves and I’m pretty sure no one is still holding in their farts based on some news articles published months ago.

I can only speak for myself, but I have gotten tested every time I have been exposed or felt any sort of cold symptoms. To me, it’s irresponsible to not be tested. I am at work in an office and in the theme parks every week. I would not feel right knowing I could be exposing other people without some reassurance.

Now my coworker who was unvaccinated and tested positive, on the other hand, did not bother to officially test her kids after they came down with symptoms. At that point, the whole household had it. That’s 2 children right there that will go by unreported.

 

[Rickcat96]

Dude, yes it is, and denying it is just dishonest. OSHA is part of the executive branch so anything they do is from the executive branch. The agency is acting because they were told to do so in an executive order.

Goof is right- Congress gave the power to OSHA, not the executive branch.

 

[GoofGoof]

Dude, yes it is, and denying it is just dishonest. OSHA is part of the executive branch so anything they do is from the executive branch. The agency is acting because they were told to do so in an executive order.

You guys are free to believe whatever you want. There is absolutely no reason that there needs to be an act of Congress passing legislation to allow OSHA to enact a rule around workplace safety. That’s simply not true. Anyone is free to challenge that in court and it will be shot down. I’m not going to play semantics games around terms and wording so last I’ll say.

 

[Patcheslee]

I can only speak for myself, but I have gotten tested every time I have been exposed or felt any sort of cold symptoms. To me, it’s irresponsible to not be tested. I am at work in an office and in the theme parks every week. I would not feel right knowing I could be exposing other people without some reassurance.

Now my coworker who was unvaccinated and tested positive, on the other hand, did not bother to officially test her kids after they came down with symptoms. At that point, the whole household had it. That’s 2 children right there that will go by unreported.

My step-dad went to the Dr. Friday because he's been having low fever and running nose for a week now. He's early 70s, vaccinated, and works at Home Depot with a mask. Doctor didn't with do a covid test because he said likelihood of a breakthrough case is minimal and said it's just allergies. Are the chances pretty low? Sure, but not exactly comforting to make an assumption given his age and if the 8 month vaccination period holds, he's due for a booster next week.

 

[disneygeek90]

My step-dad went to the Dr. Friday because he's been having low fever and running nose for a week now. He's early 70s, vaccinated, and works at Home Depot with a mask. Doctor didn't with do a covid test because he said likelihood of a breakthrough case is minimal and said it's just allergies. Are the chances pretty low? Sure, but not exactly comforting to make an assumption given his age and if the 8 month vaccination period holds, he's due for a booster next week.

Odd that wasn’t a test they wanted to run immediately but I suppose he could find a county test site or even a home test for reassurance.

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

Again, I feel like maybe you don’t think covid is a big problem right now so that’s why you aren’t getting what I’m saying. Maybe I’m way off on that but it seems like you are OK with doing nothing different which is unacceptable to me.

This is what I have run into with some of my friends. It’s not a big problem. Hospitals aren’t actually filling up. Masks don’t actually work. They say “show me the science” or “show me the proof.”

You can’t win. They believe that Covid isn’t an issue and you can’t change their mind

 

[lazyboy97o]

Goof is right- Congress gave the power to OSHA, not the executive branch.

OSHA is part of the Department of Labor. The Department of Labor is part of the executive branch. The Secretary of Labor is appointed by the President and works for the president. The agency was granted authority by Congress but they work for the president which is why the president can tel them what to do.

 

[Touchdown]

Congress has already ceded the ability to make work place guidelines to OSHA. Everyone screaming Congress has to approve is right, the thing is they already did, It’s done. Do you know who regulates when N95 masks need to be worn at work? OSHA. They already regulate protections for toxic aerosols, covering for biological ones is within their pervue.

 

[GoofGoof]

OSHA is part of the Department of Labor. The Department of Labor is part of the executive branch. The Secretary of Labor is appointed by the President and works for the president. The agency was granted authority by Congress but they work for the president which is why the president can tel them what to do.

My post doesn‘t dispute any of that. The other poster is saying that the action is illegal because it wasn’t passed by Congress as part of legislation. It’s the classic argument against emergency executive orders that come from the executive branch to get around a Congressional vote. That’s not what this is. POTUS has every legal right to direct the Department of Labor to act in any way they are legally authorized to. The only way to stop OSHA from making a rule around workplace safety is to pass legislation limiting their authority to do so.

 

[Rickcat96]

OSHA is part of the Department of Labor. The Department of Labor is part of the executive branch. The Secretary of Labor is appointed by the President and works for the president. The agency was granted authority by Congress but they work for the president which is why the president can tel them what to do.

again-Congress established the authority, not the President or Executive branch, just because the President chose to exercise that authority is moot to where the power is derived from.

 

[Patcheslee]

Odd that wasn’t a test they wanted to run immediately but I suppose he could find a county test site or even a home test for reassurance.

Definitely was odd considering the offices current policy. Anyone with any type of respiratory symptoms park in designated spots, call in with their spot number, nurse comes out in full covid precautions gear, gets info, and does a rapid test. If it comes back negative they go in the office for further assessment. Positive and the doctor comes outside for the visit. So they skipped the whole process based on an assumption. Wondering if part of deciding he didn't need one, is due to low test availability again.
County test site isn't open again until Monday so he's home until can get one. Walmart is out of home tests and CVS is closed due to employee emergency.

 

[ArmoredRodent]

OSHA is part of the Department of Labor. The Department of Labor is part of the executive branch. The Secretary of Labor is appointed by the President and works for the president. The agency was granted authority by Congress but they work for the president which is why the president can tel them what to do.

I was going to let the whole OSHA discussion lie quiet after the first discussion here, but since it's bubbling up again, please let me jump in to point out that both GoofGoof and Lazyboy97o are right, in part. Like so much in this area, this whole question of who has what authority to govern Covid-related governmental power is complicated, especially when there are huge bodies of law around both an employment relationship and constitutional structures like the separation of powers. The new proposed OSHA rule is the subject of heated debate in the media, reflecting that complexity. No simple answers here.

So, bottom line? OSHA does not have the ability to do whatever it wants, or even just what President Biden tells it to do; it is limited by its own statutory authority (that is, the authority delegated to it by Congress), and by prior Supreme Court rules. But assuming it follows the rules, it can issue some powerful new rules about vaccination mandates in some workplaces. Like all such mandates, reviewing courts will judge what OSHA does under rules developed over the course of the pandemic, including requiring OSHA to prove, with specific evidence, that its proposed rule has a remedy precisely tailored to the problems it claims. This is the same standard we've discussed here for several other cases, such as the NCL cruise line case.

So expect to see something from OSHA that is more narrowly-written than what some have speculated about in the media, but still likely to give employers who do want to comply the ability to defend their workplace rules. And expect to see a bunch of lawsuits, with all sorts of weird legal twists.

For those who want to dig deeper, there's a new resource available today. Last night, Professor Jonathan Adler, a well-known administrative law expert from Case Western Reserve University (contrary to conventional wisdom, a lot of new legal thinking is coming out of Midwestern law schools, much of it very different from the intellectual elites on both coasts) put up a very good baseline explainer, with a minimum of legalese, about OSHA's power and relationship to the White House: https://reason.com/volokh/2021/09/1...cination-mandate-and-likely-legal-challenges/ The Volokh Conspiracy blog (now at Reason magazine, but previously at the Washington Post and other sites) is run by Prof. Eugene Volokh, a top constitutional scholar from UCLA, and it has a decidedly libertarian slant, which makes it quite influential with the new Supreme Court, now split between conservatives, liberals and libertarians.

Some excerpts from Prof. Adler's blog post:
For starters, it is important to recognize that this proposed standard represents a far more traditional use of agency authority than did the CDC's eviction moratorium. While this is unquestionably an aggressive use of OSHA authority, it does not represent a dramatic departure from the sorts of things OSHA has done over the past fifty years, and does not raise quite the same specter of an agency without unlimited authority that the CDC [eviction] moratoria did. This doesn't mean the standard should or will survive legal challenge, but it does indicate the issues are somewhat different.

Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, OSHA has broad authority to set workplace safety standards ("occupational safety and health standards"), including standards aimed at reducing the threat of disease. ... First, the authority here is quite broad, reaching just about anything that could pose a health or safety risk in the workplace. OSHA standards are not just about exposures to chemicals, but cover all manner of potential workplace threats [including "agents," which can include viruses]. Second, any standards set under the statute must be "reasonably necessary or appropriate." Third, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, this language ... requires that OSHA conclude that the danger to be regulated poses a "significant risk" to employees.
...
Where OSHA will have to be careful in drafting and defending the ETS [emergency rules that take less time to put out than formal regulations] is in substantiating that COVID-19 (or newly emergent variants of it) pose a "grave danger" in the workplace, and that the ETS is "necessary" to limit that danger. ... There must be a "grave danger," not merely a significant risk, and the standard must be "necessary," as opposed to merely "reasonably necessary or appropriate." In other words, OSHA must clear a higher hurdle than is required for a regular workplace standard.
...
While the White House is focused on the broader spread of COVID, and overall vaccination rates, these cannot be OSHA's focus. Nor can OSHA adopt an overbroad rule, roping in all large employers when the relevant risks are concentrated in a subset of firms. That there are some workplaces (say, a meat-packing plant) where there is a serious risk of spread, particularly if employees are unvaccinated, may justify an ETS that applies to those workplaces. It cannot justify an ETS applied to all workplaces generally. This is why I raised an eyebrow at the White House's focus on the number of employees in a firm (as opposed to the number of employees at a given workplace). If the eventual ETS is similarly broad, it could have a problem.

 

[GoofGoof]

I was going to let the whole OSHA discussion lie quiet after the first discussion here, but since it's bubbling up again, please let me jump in to point out that both GoofGoof and Lazyboy97o are right, in part. Like so much in this area, this whole question of who has what authority to govern Covid-related governmental power is complicated, especially when there are huge bodies of law around both an employment relationship and constitutional structures like the separation of powers. The new proposed OSHA rule is the subject of heated debate in the media, reflecting that complexity. No simple answers here.

So, bottom line? OSHA does not have the ability to do whatever it wants, or even just what President Biden tells it to do; it is limited by its own statutory authority (that is, the authority delegated to it by Congress), and by prior Supreme Court rules. But assuming it follows the rules, it can issue some powerful new rules about vaccination mandates in some workplaces. Like all such mandates, reviewing courts will judge what OSHA does under rules developed over the course of the pandemic, including requiring OSHA to prove, with specific evidence, that its proposed rule has a remedy precisely tailored to the problems it claims. This is the same standard we've discussed here for several other cases, such as the NCL cruise line case.

So expect to see something from OSHA that is more narrowly-written than what some have speculated about in the media, but still likely to give employers who do want to comply the ability to defend their workplace rules. And expect to see a bunch of lawsuits, with all sorts of weird legal twists.

For those who want to dig deeper, there's a new resource available today. Last night, Professor Jonathan Adler, a well-known administrative law expert from Case Western Reserve University (contrary to conventional wisdom, a lot of new legal thinking is coming out of Midwestern law schools, much of it very different from the intellectual elites on both coasts) put up a very good baseline explainer, with a minimum of legalese, about OSHA's power and relationship to the White House: https://reason.com/volokh/2021/09/1...cination-mandate-and-likely-legal-challenges/ The Volokh Conspiracy blog (now at Reason magazine, but previously at the Washington Post and other sites) is run by Prof. Eugene Volokh, a top constitutional scholar from UCLA, and it has a decidedly libertarian slant, which makes it quite influential with the new Supreme Court, now split between conservatives, liberals and libertarians.

Some excerpts from Prof. Adler's blog post:
For starters, it is important to recognize that this proposed standard represents a far more traditional use of agency authority than did the CDC's eviction moratorium. While this is unquestionably an aggressive use of OSHA authority, it does not represent a dramatic departure from the sorts of things OSHA has done over the past fifty years, and does not raise quite the same specter of an agency without unlimited authority that the CDC [eviction] moratoria did. This doesn't mean the standard should or will survive legal challenge, but it does indicate the issues are somewhat different.

Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, OSHA has broad authority to set workplace safety standards ("occupational safety and health standards"), including standards aimed at reducing the threat of disease. ... First, the authority here is quite broad, reaching just about anything that could pose a health or safety risk in the workplace. OSHA standards are not just about exposures to chemicals, but cover all manner of potential workplace threats [including "agents," which can include viruses]. Second, any standards set under the statute must be "reasonably necessary or appropriate." Third, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, this language ... requires that OSHA conclude that the danger to be regulated poses a "significant risk" to employees.
...
Where OSHA will have to be careful in drafting and defending the ETS [emergency rules that take less time to put out than formal regulations] is in substantiating that COVID-19 (or newly emergent variants of it) pose a "grave danger" in the workplace, and that the ETS is "necessary" to limit that danger. ... There must be a "grave danger," not merely a significant risk, and the standard must be "necessary," as opposed to merely "reasonably necessary or appropriate." In other words, OSHA must clear a higher hurdle than is required for a regular workplace standard.
...
While the White House is focused on the broader spread of COVID, and overall vaccination rates, these cannot be OSHA's focus. Nor can OSHA adopt an overbroad rule, roping in all large employers when the relevant risks are concentrated in a subset of firms. That there are some workplaces (say, a meat-packing plant) where there is a serious risk of spread, particularly if employees are unvaccinated, may justify an ETS that applies to those workplaces. It cannot justify an ETS applied to all workplaces generally. This is why I raised an eyebrow at the White House's focus on the number of employees in a firm (as opposed to the number of employees at a given workplace). If the eventual ETS is similarly broad, it could have a problem.

Hard to argue at this point that Covid does not pose a grave risk. I am sure the lawsuits will revolve around whether weekly testing will be necessary or effective at limiting that danger. We have all focused on vaccination, but the rule will require weekly testing with an option to allow fully vaccinated people to avoid testing.

 

[Wendy Pleakley]

I don't have the answer, and I don't make policy.
In contrast to many here who are convinced that they have all of the answers.
I also have a life, and do not live to respond back to every response to my comments. I never look at these boards on my phone for instance.
What I can tell you with certainty however is that acting in a manner that is directly in keeping with the the way your opposition believes you to be - is not the way to go.

If someone disagrees with the current approach it’s more than fair to ask what the alternative is.

 

[GoofGoof]

Probably best to table that discussion for a different thread. Just my 2 cents, everyone is free to talk about what they want.

 

[DCBaker]

In a continuing downward swing, 11,701 people are hospitalized for COVID-19 in Florida, according to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services report on Sunday from 259 Florida hospitals.

That’s 521 fewer patients than Saturday’s report from 260 hospitals, and 950 fewer patients than Friday’s from 261 hospitals.

"In Sunday’s report, COVID-19 patients take up 20.06% of all inpatient hospital beds compared to 20.75% in the previous day’s reporting hospitals.

Of the people hospitalized in Florida, 2,828 people were in intensive care unit beds, a decrease of 57 for the second consecutive day. That represents 43.22% of the ICU hospital beds at the 259 hospitals reporting data, compared to 43.58% the previous day.

What’s not clear is if these continued decreases are because this COVID-19 wave is ebbing or because some of the people in the recent hospitalization spike are now part of the death toll reported over the last two weeks."

"About 11,809,414 eligible Floridians — 55% of the state’s population — have completed the two-dose series of Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna, or have completed Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose vaccine, according to the CDC."

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article254183613.html

 

[willtravel]

The mods must be taking a day off.