United Team:
Happy New Year – I want to start this message with a thank you.
Our frontline teams continue to put in a tremendous effort during what I know is an incredibly challenging and stressful time – the Omicron surge has put a strain on our operation, resulting in customer disruptions during a busy holiday season. I appreciate your professionalism, creativity, and caring approach – it’s really made all the difference in helping us manage the impact on our customers.
In addition to impacting our operation and our customers, I also know that Omicron has affected the personal well-being of our United team. We have about 3,000 employees who are currently positive for COVID. Just as an example, in one day alone at Newark, nearly one-third of our workforce called out sick. To those who are out sick or isolating, we wish you a speedy recovery.
www.united.com/en/us/newsroom/announcements/scott-kirby-employee-note
State Rep. Chuck Grassie, D-Rochester, said he has tested positive for COVID-19 and is certain he contracted it during the House sessions last week at the DoubleTree by Hilton in Manchester.
That brings the total to three House members that are now known to have tested positive after the sessions last Wednesday and Thursday.
“I did everything prior to the session and was virtually quarantined. I tested the night before the House met and was negative,” Grassie said. “This was something I caught there. There is no other way I could have gotten it.”
House Speaker Sherman Packard wouldn’t say Tuesday if there are others who have tested positive.
Rep. Bill Marsh, D-Brookfield, warned last week before the sessions of the possibility of a super-spreader event.
CDC director Rochelle Walensky says Covid cases on 100% vaccinated cruise ships surged 30-fold in two weeks. 5,000 cases in 14 days.
Cruise ships have seen a 30-fold increase in positive Covid-19 cases in the past two weeks, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said during a Senate hearing Tuesday.
Ships operating in U.S. waters reported about 5,000 Covid cases from Dec. 15 through Dec. 29. Walensky didn’t provide updated figures on Tuesday.
Walensky didn’t provide updated figures on cases aboard cruise ships during Tuesday’s hearing.
On Saturday, in response to hospitals begging for relief from a massive staffing crisis, the California Department of Public Health announced that most hospitals and skilled nursing facilities can bring COVID-positive and exposed staff back to work without testing or quarantines. The staffers must be asymptomatic, are required to wear N95 masks and are encouraged to work with patients who are already COVID-positive as much as possible.
After reviewing the charts of every COVID-positive patient at UCSF hospitals on Jan. 4, Dr. Jeanne Noble, an associate professor of emergency medicine at UCSF, determined that 70% of them were in the hospital for other reasons.
“The real COVID crisis that our hospitals are facing is a severe staffing shortage that is compromising the quality of our care,” Noble said Friday, shortly before the policy change was announced.
“I have not intubated a single COVID patient during this Omicron surge. We have a total of 5 patients with COVID on ventilators across our 4 hospitals. An average of 1.25 intubated COVID patients per hospital is a good news story.”
www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/COVID-San-Francisco-staff-shortage-UCSF-16758335.php
EU Warns Repeat Boosters Could Weaken Immune System
h/t PANDEMIC OF THE VACCINATED