Biden’s COVID plan depends on enforcement

On Thursday, President Joe Biden took bold new steps to defeat the resurgent pandemic — by strengthening the COVID vaccine mandate for federal employees and contractors, pushing big private companies to impose mandates of their own, and announcing a series of other initiatives. He was right to act, and these measures deserve wide support.

It’s good that more than 62% of Americans 12 and older are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, but tens of millions are still vulnerable. If infected, they’re at risk of severe illness. Cases, hospitalizations and deaths have all risen in recent weeks. The pandemic is not yet under control, even though the best means of bringing it under control — vaccination — is readily at hand.

The country needed Biden to take the initiative. Now that he has, all Americans should do their part to conquer this scourge.

The president announced that some 4 million federal workers will soon have to be vaccinated or face disciplinary action. It remains to be seen whether the sanctions will include termination — but they should, where workers refuse vaccination without a good medical or religious reason. (Some private firms have made vaccination a condition of employment, and there’s no reason why the federal government should treat its employees differently.) In a move extending to some 80 million people, Biden added that U.S. companies with at least 100 workers will be told to insist on shots or weekly COVID-19 testing. If they don’t comply, they’ll face fines. The new measures include work to provide booster shots to strengthen immunity; plans to keep schools open and safe; efforts to increase testing and use of masks; new economic supports, especially for small businesses; and further efforts to help hospitals and improve treatments.

Hospitals and colleges across the country, as well as a large swath of corporate America, have already moved to adopt vaccine mandates. This approach has worked, pushing many more people to get their shots. Meanwhile, progress across the country as a whole has been slow. The number of Americans inoculated can and should be higher than the current 800,000 a day.

Critics of mandates can be expected to push back. They say they should be free to do as they judge best, deciding for themselves whether to take their chances with COVID. But the consequences of their decisions aren’t confined to them. The safety of others is compromised. The longer COVID is allowed to circulate, the greater the pandemic’s toll will be. Hospitals risk being overwhelmed, forcing them to ration care, including for those sick through no fault of their own. All the while, the coronavirus is left free to mutate.

Biden seems to have the support of federal workers’ unions, including the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest — and that’s encouraging. Many other national unions also support vaccine mandates, including the American Federation of Teachers and unions affiliated with the AFL-CIO. But some local unions still resist. Police unions in Portland, Chicago and many other cities are opposed. In New York, many municipal unions are against the city’s pending mandate. Even some health-care unions have fought hospital mandates. And unions representing professional athletes, including the NFL players’ association, have also dug in their heels.

There’s political resistance as well, of course, which is only to be expected in an America so bitterly divided into partisan camps. Nothing is more important than mending these divisions, at least so far as the pandemic is concerned. Biden’s opponents ought to stop and think. His initiative should unite the country in a new determination to defeat its common enemy.

Bedrooms

Who bears the consequences?

Many of us living in Martin Acres and the Hill have dealt with over occupancy issues for decades and we bear the consequences as it has resulted in increased noise, parking issues, traffic and trash.

The memo sent to City Council by staff on July 20, 2021 states that, “regulating the number of unrelated adults allowed in a single family home is a method of indirectly regulating neighborhood impacts that result from high concentrations of unrelated adults residing in a single dwelling.”

This fall, a ballot measure will be asking voters for one bedroom one tenant plus one in all single family neighborhoods in the city. Homeowners, young families seeking housing and renters need to understand that abolishing occupancy limits will yield us unlimited over-occupancy that the city will not regulate because there will no longer be a baseline for it. In fact, we all know the city historically does a poor job of regulating occupancy so this would essentially be the nail in the coffin for affordability and the precursor to the end of single family neighborhoods as we know it.

Banks provide mortgages to investors based on the return from rent paid by legal occupants. Greedy investors have been buying homes up in Boulder and elsewhere, essentially turning them into rooming houses for renters, with less living space and charging price per head. What this means is that a three bedroom home has the potential to be subdivided into a five or more bedroom home or potentially scraped and built to maximize the number of bedrooms. The investor capitalizes with unlimited occupancy while the pathway to ownership for young families with children will become unattainable.

Do homeowners really want Boulder to turn into one massive rooming community where families are pushed out of the city?

JAN TRUSSELL

CU

Reinstate remote teaching flexibility

As we have returned to campus this fall, we’re faced with a harsh reality: COVID-19 is not gone. It is, once again, on the upswing.

As a member of CU’S system-wide faculty, staff, and student worker union, United Campus Workers Colorado (UCW), I am asking CU to respond to the changing conditions of the pandemic by reinstating protective measures and creating flexibility for faculty and staff regarding remote teaching.

CU Boulder, specifically, has gotten rid of many of last years’ protections, like isolation spaces and robust surveillance testing.

In a recent UCW poll of campus workers, 91% think that campus COVID policies should adhere to CDC indoor mask guidelines; 90% of respondents also stated that faculty and staff should be allowed to require masks in personal office settings. With Boulder County Public Health’s new mask mandate, CU needs to change their current guidelines on mask use and social distancing.

Reports of large classes in rooms filled to capacity, negates the safety afforded by social distancing. Faculty must be allowed to change their course modality from in-person to online, as they see fit.

The vaccine is not a silver bullet. Breakthrough cases account for a low percentage of total cases but are becoming more common.

As a member of the CU community, both as a worker and student, and a healthcare professional working in an inpatient setting. I urge CU to extend the mask mandate to all shared indoor spaces on campus, including residence halls, to create isolation spaces for students who test positive for COVID and reside on campus, and to return to accessible, no appointment necessary COVID testing.

CU’S negligence with this year’s COVID response forces the whole CU community to work and learn in circumstances that do not feel safe.

CU do better. Support your community.

JUAN RAMIREZ

Afghan refugees

We can help them

We Americans certainly disagree over the wisdom and execution of the American policies related to Afghanistan. At the same time I believe we strongly agree that we should help refugees who supported our forces to create new lives for themselves and their families. Other recent letters to the editor have offered great ways to help with resettling refugees in the U.S.

I propose that Boulder City Council pass a resolution that our city will be a welcoming location for Afghan translators, journalists, workers on bases, etc. In addition Council should allocate $100,000 to be dispersed to social service organizations to facilitate that. This amount is less than 1/3000th of the 2021 budget.

I also encourage the Boulder County Commissioners, and other Boulder County cities and towns, to do the same.

If you agree, copy-andpaste this letter, and send it to these local governmental agencies. And lastly, if you want to personally help, use your favorite search engine, and enter “how to help Afghan refugees” and add “in Colorado” if you want to stay local. You will be rewarded with dozens of suggestions.

JON ETRA

Steve Pomerance

It’s not all about process

Steve Pomerance is highly skilled at presenting issues as failures of procedure. Sometimes they are, but procedure claims often mask a speaker’s opinion on the underlying question. Mr. Pomerance’s broadside against the current City Council (Camera Sept. 3) is the latter kind. He passionately supported the failed and ruinously expensive effort to convert our electricity provider from Xcel to the city and can’t let go. The merits are exhausted, so now it is all about process. Bad target. The issue was decided by popular vote, and the lead-up to that was thoroughly aired by Council and press including a flood of letters to, and opinion columns in, the Camera. Moreover, he never confesses to the $20 million error by proponents of municipalization, to pursue it by the city instead of forming an appropriate special district.