Speaker 1: More than a dozen states quickly embraced new CDC guidelines
Speaker 1: that say fully vaccinated Americans can ditch their masks and
Speaker 1: forego social distancing in most cases. But the sudden change
Speaker 1: has led to questions and concerns from those who say
Speaker 1: there's no easy way for businesses and others to determine
Speaker 1: who's fully vaccinated and who's not. Joining me as Rob Fuller,
Speaker 1: a partner with Nelson Hardeman, so the new CDC guidance
Speaker 1: came as a surprise to many health and state officials.
Speaker 1: Should it have been done so seemingly abruptly, well, I
Speaker 1: think the guidance itself was science based. The problem, I
Speaker 1: think is messaging. You know, we're on the honor system
Speaker 1: whether you've had a vaccination or The guidance, based on
Speaker 1: a study of four thousand healthcare workers, basically proved the
Speaker 1: efficacy of the vaccines. Since the vaccination's work, they protect
Speaker 1: you against serious COVID disease, and so when compared to
Speaker 1: additional safety you might get by continued mask wearing and
Speaker 1: social distancing, uh, it was negligible. You're not measurable in
Speaker 1: the study. So the guidance did follow the sign Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: like here in California, we don't have very many people vaccinated.
Speaker 1: In the big scheme of things, more than six the
Speaker 1: people remain unvaccinated. So it's confusing for business owners and
Speaker 1: everyone else that you know, if you let a hundred
Speaker 1: people in your store, statistically you know that more than
Speaker 1: sixty of them are unvaccinated, and so you, you know,
Speaker 1: for the safety of your own workers, might well consider
Speaker 1: continuing a mask mandate on your own regardless of what
Speaker 1: is the public perceived CDC guidance that masks are no
Speaker 1: longer necessary. Well, also, it seems like there are problems
Speaker 1: because the state guidance is different from the CDC guidance.
Speaker 1: So you mentioned California is one place where that is
Speaker 1: true until today. New York is now going to lift
Speaker 1: it's state mask mandate, But in other states there's a conflict.
Speaker 1: So what do businesses do. Yeah, I think it's a
Speaker 1: messaging conflict. But when they lift their mask guides in
Speaker 1: New York today, for instance, it's still recommends that if
Speaker 1: you're unvaccinated that you continue to wear a mask. It
Speaker 1: just wasn't going to be a matter of requirement. Uh.
Speaker 1: CDC guidance also continues mask wearing for public transportation and
Speaker 1: plane travel. But a private business vers is in a
Speaker 1: tough situation. Obviously you want to cater to the customer,
Speaker 1: but you also, under OSHA and other laws, have a
Speaker 1: duty to keep your workforce safe. And knowing that most
Speaker 1: people are not vaccinated yet, you know, if you're a
Speaker 1: business owner, you could just very sanely decide that that
Speaker 1: the best thing for now, for another month or two
Speaker 1: is to continue to require masks. And of course that
Speaker 1: produces what we see on TV with angry, uh maskless
Speaker 1: people being denied entrance to certain stores that have decided
Speaker 1: to do that because of all the prior politicalization and
Speaker 1: you know, guidance shifting quickly. It is a messaging mess
Speaker 1: and leaves the individual business person in quite a laundry.
Speaker 1: The guidance from the CDC was rolled out on Thursday.
Speaker 1: OSHA hasn't substantially changed its masking recommendations in almost four months.
Speaker 1: That's correct. OSHA will err on the side of work
Speaker 1: for safety and will be much slower than the other
Speaker 1: agencies and recommending discontinuation of masks. And I think you know,
Speaker 1: common sense would tell you that if most people are
Speaker 1: still unvaccinated, probably makes sense to keep masks on the
Speaker 1: requirement list in the workplace for at least a little
Speaker 1: while longer until most people become vaccinated, and then, you know,
Speaker 1: the the issue is that the masks work, you know,
Speaker 1: despite the prior politicization of weather mask wearing was you know,
Speaker 1: taking away my freedom and all that stuff. If you
Speaker 1: look at any large Asian city, the deaths from COVID
Speaker 1: are just a small fraction of what we experienced the
Speaker 1: United States, New York City had deaths and Los Angeles
Speaker 1: had twenty four thousand deaths. If you look the you know,
Speaker 1: Hong Kong had two deaths, Singapore thirty one deaths. Even Tokyo,
Speaker 1: which quote had a problem, is fewer than two thousand deaths,
Speaker 1: less than one tenth of what Los Angeles experienced. So
Speaker 1: you know that it's kind of a large data point
Speaker 1: that we have is that the masks and really work.
Speaker 1: And I think the way to look at the CDC
Speaker 1: guidance is that, Okay, once you're vaccinated, you've got just
Speaker 1: as much protection as the mask, so you really don't
Speaker 1: have to wear the mask. But they, in mind view
Speaker 1: didn't emphasize enough that the vaccination was the key to
Speaker 1: be masking, and you know, the average person here is okay,
Speaker 1: masks aren't required any more. CDCs says so, and they
Speaker 1: skip over the point of whether you're vaccinated or not.
Speaker 1: And I think that's unfortunate, and that's what we're looking
Speaker 1: at here. Do you think part of the reason for
Speaker 1: the new CDC guidance was to encourage people to get vaccinated. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was part of the thinking from what the public
Speaker 1: spokes person seven and Dr wilens that you know, okay,
Speaker 1: you can now discard the mask if you're vaccinated. And
Speaker 1: I just don't think that was a strong enough message.
Speaker 1: It was there, but it should have been the headline,
Speaker 1: you know, it should have been the lead, as they
Speaker 1: used to say, and and not buried it. Really, I
Speaker 1: think got buried that the trade off or no mask
Speaker 1: is getting the shot. And there's no question in my
Speaker 1: mind that's what they're trying to accomplish. And so they're
Speaker 1: trying to incent people to get the shot so then
Speaker 1: you can, even under the honor system, get yourself free
Speaker 1: of the mask. And Americans just aren't good at the
Speaker 1: honor system or that smart, right. I think we've proved
Speaker 1: that in really addressing these serious public health issues and
Speaker 1: wearing the mask cool and they should have so I
Speaker 1: think for any excuse not to where a mask, people
Speaker 1: are going to do it. And if you're challenged there's
Speaker 1: no vaccine passport, you just say, hey, I got vaccinated
Speaker 1: and you're good to go. But that's not really what
Speaker 1: people should be doing. They should be very serious about
Speaker 1: getting the shot before discarding the mask. Also, is the
Speaker 1: CDC guidance Is it a little confusing? Does it address
Speaker 1: you know, what you have to do when you're on
Speaker 1: an airplane or schools or schools schools? They left local
Speaker 1: the areas that they There are three areas they said
Speaker 1: you still needed to wear masks no matter what, airplanes,
Speaker 1: health care facilities, and a public transportation And I think
Speaker 1: that's just a recognition that the vaccination rates are just
Speaker 1: not high enough to support a full dy masking of
Speaker 1: the public at this point. But again I was disappointed
Speaker 1: in the emphasis and the messenging that that that really
Speaker 1: didn't come through, at least to what I read and
Speaker 1: heard over the last couple of days. The United Food
Speaker 1: and Commercial Workers Union criticized the CDC for failing to
Speaker 1: consider how the new policy would affect grocery store workers
Speaker 1: who have to deal with customers who are not vaccinated,
Speaker 1: right and there's no way you can force them to
Speaker 1: wear a mask. Really, if you know, if the store
Speaker 1: management isn't going to make continue a firm masking policy
Speaker 1: at the front door, which many of them are not.
Speaker 1: You know, if you have a thousand people go to
Speaker 1: grocery store right now, six hundred of them at least
Speaker 1: are unvaccinated. So there's going to be continued spread of
Speaker 1: COVID and that exposes the workers. I mean, the only
Speaker 1: good news for the workers is the same for everyone else.
Speaker 1: If get your shot, the data show from the study
Speaker 1: that CDC relied on that you are extremely well protected
Speaker 1: against serious disease. It's it's so kind of everyone for
Speaker 1: themselves sort of thing right now this weekend walking around
Speaker 1: in New York City. I'm fully vaccinated, and I assume
Speaker 1: a lot of other people are. But every time you
Speaker 1: want to go into a store or somewhere, you have
Speaker 1: to put the mask on anyway, because most of the
Speaker 1: stores are requiring masks. Still, it gets to be, well,
Speaker 1: why even bother taking it off when I'm walking around outside. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there is an element of that, and we're in a
Speaker 1: transition period. And I just think, you know, if this
Speaker 1: advice had come out, you know, a month from now
Speaker 1: or or middle to late June, when maybe hopefully sixty
Speaker 1: sixty five seventy percent of the population is vaccinated. Uh,
Speaker 1: then I think people would have felt a lot more
Speaker 1: comfortable in going maskless, and businesses probably would have had
Speaker 1: less of a requirement. But it's it's very, very conflicting
Speaker 1: right now for a business owner when you know sixty
Speaker 1: years so percent of the people are not vaccinated and
Speaker 1: you're supposing your your workforce and you you really can't
Speaker 1: require your workforce to get vaccinated either, but you can
Speaker 1: encourage everyone to get vaccinated, and that's not the best
Speaker 1: you can do, and it just is going to be
Speaker 1: messy for another six weeks or so in my view.
Speaker 1: So for employers and employers ask employees to give them
Speaker 1: information about, you know, whether they've been vaccinated or not,
Speaker 1: or does that impinge on their privacy rights? Yeah, that
Speaker 1: varies by state. Uh. If the employer is paying generally
Speaker 1: for healthcare, the employer under the federal law has the
Speaker 1: right to know about the employee's health status just because
Speaker 1: they're a pay or so there's there's you know, some
Speaker 1: ability of the employer to gain information in that regard.
Speaker 1: Some states have more strict laws, however, and make it
Speaker 1: on a need to know only basis. And right now,
Speaker 1: you know, I think employers can ask in most places,
Speaker 1: but the employee isn't required to tell them or to
Speaker 1: get the vaccination. And I think that's going to change. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, it's all but important differences to the status
Speaker 1: of the shots. Right now, none of the shots are
Speaker 1: fully authorized by the FDA. They're they're under the emergency
Speaker 1: use authorization, which is different from full accepted authorization. And
Speaker 1: once the FDA moves and has full accepted authorization, then
Speaker 1: there are jurisdictions in which employers will be able to
Speaker 1: mandate that employees get the shot, or school districts will
Speaker 1: be able to mandate that the youngsters get the shot
Speaker 1: before going back to school. So that's coming. It's it's
Speaker 1: just not quite there yet because the vaccinations are not
Speaker 1: fully approved by the FDA at this point. You know,
Speaker 1: at the beginning, I heard a lot more talk about
Speaker 1: herd immunity. Are they giving up on her immunity? No?
Speaker 1: I mean the problem with her immunity is that it's
Speaker 1: it's it's neither her nor immune. You know, we we have, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: of virus that is highly mutigetic and their new variants
Speaker 1: being created every day. So the number of people who
Speaker 1: have to be fully vaccinated at a period of time
Speaker 1: when the virus is stable was thought maybe to be
Speaker 1: you know, in the but but what I've read recently,
Speaker 1: it's more like, because the stability of the virus is
Speaker 1: very short lived, is it mutates, and then the number
Speaker 1: of interactions that people have are given the transmissibility of
Speaker 1: the virus just overwhelmed. What's called the our number of
Speaker 1: the ability that transmitted. You know, if we could all
Speaker 1: it's funny, but if we could all lock ourselves a
Speaker 1: closet for fourteen days, this entire thing would go away. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because it wouldn't be transmitted and the virus would die
Speaker 1: in its hosts within fortune days. What about the variants, well,
Speaker 1: you know they're a big problem. I mean, that's that's
Speaker 1: the giant unknown. So that the two unknowns we have
Speaker 1: and why you shouldn't throw out your mass quite yet
Speaker 1: are one. How long the antibodies UH and T cell
Speaker 1: response from the vaccinations persists. Everyone's hoping it's years um,
Speaker 1: but it may be only a few months, and we
Speaker 1: don't have that data point yet because people haven't been
Speaker 1: vaccinated that long. UM. They're hoping a robust T cell
Speaker 1: response UH continues for years in the vaccinations and that
Speaker 1: would be terrific nows, but we don't know yet. We
Speaker 1: won't know for you know, year or two is what
Speaker 1: the persistence rate is. The second giant unknown is is
Speaker 1: how the variants are going to affect both transmissibility and
Speaker 1: and the ability to create serious or fatal disease. And
Speaker 1: so we have to be prepared that one of these
Speaker 1: variants is going to skip over the protection of the
Speaker 1: vaccine and basically set us you know, at day zero
Speaker 1: again that it's like a new virus being spread. And
Speaker 1: that's the problem unvaccinated people is that they're like little
Speaker 1: many laboratories formed for the mutation of the virus. Now,
Speaker 1: the the the silver lining in the virus that might
Speaker 1: skip over the currentvaccines is that the scientists have done
Speaker 1: a darn fine job in creating these platforms and they
Speaker 1: can quickly develop a booster shot or additional vaccine that
Speaker 1: would be able to get on top of most any
Speaker 1: variant that would come. You know our way. So it's
Speaker 1: I think going to become something like the flu shot situation,
Speaker 1: where you get one every year. It's not a great match,
Speaker 1: but it keeps you from getting really sick. And I
Speaker 1: think the COVID situation is going to be a lot
Speaker 1: like that where it's going to continue to flourish. You know,
Speaker 1: their partial the world to have no vaccine seeing yet.
Speaker 1: So I mean there's literally hundreds of millions of people
Speaker 1: who are able to get the disease transmitted and create
Speaker 1: mutations and so new versions that are going to be
Speaker 1: coming up for years to come at this rate, and
Speaker 1: and it's going to be a couple of years before
Speaker 1: we get the vaccination worldwide in a significant number of
Speaker 1: people to to get on top of it. And that's
Speaker 1: including keeping on top of variants. So you know, we're
Speaker 1: in a nice kind of we've been vaccine dye during
Speaker 1: a good spot right now and all the variants seem
Speaker 1: to be reactive to the existing vaccines um but that
Speaker 1: could change and it's not the end of the world,
Speaker 1: but we need to be vigilant and to uh, you know,
Speaker 1: follow guidance if if it turns out one of these
Speaker 1: variances is not captured by the existing vaccines. Well, do
Speaker 1: we even know do we need to get booster shots
Speaker 1: within six months? Are hearing different? That sort of is
Speaker 1: another problem problem, you know, it's a big problem. But but
Speaker 1: but I mean we've we've only i mean the first
Speaker 1: person vaccine in the United States was in November, so
Speaker 1: I mean this is only six months right now. So
Speaker 1: if we go find that person and take their blood
Speaker 1: and analyze it, we can kind of figure out how
Speaker 1: much you know, persistence there is. But there's there's such
Speaker 1: a small group of people in November. It's really going
Speaker 1: to be more like the summer or this fall before
Speaker 1: we'll have enough people with the vaccines to be able
Speaker 1: to analyze how persistent the antibodies were and how persistent
Speaker 1: the T cell response was, So that that data point
Speaker 1: as to how persist the stuff is will be coming
Speaker 1: later this year, but again we'll only know that it's
Speaker 1: at least good for six months or at least good
Speaker 1: for a year, and it will be an ongoing study.
Speaker 1: Is that you know how long you have to keep
Speaker 1: going and whether you need boost shots. And my expectation
Speaker 1: is the anybodies are going to go away within a
Speaker 1: year and we're all going to have to get, as
Speaker 1: I said, the annual shot, just like the flu shot,
Speaker 1: vaccine passports. I mean, people were saying that wearing a
Speaker 1: mask took away their liberty and their rights, and vaccine
Speaker 1: passports seem to be even a step up from that.
Speaker 1: But do you think that's the only way to really
Speaker 1: tell because the honor system. I don't know about the
Speaker 1: honor system, you know. I think think that the politicalization
Speaker 1: of the masking and the and the passports is nonsense.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's it's it's it's a health issue.
Speaker 1: Either you've got to take care of yourself or not
Speaker 1: if you don't want to find I'm not going to
Speaker 1: think a whole lot less of you, but it's pretty
Speaker 1: dumb even that there's a fatal disease out there that
Speaker 1: you can prevent. But I have got no question in
Speaker 1: my mind if if President Trump has sort of and said,
Speaker 1: you know, folks, we have a situation here. We all
Speaker 1: got to wear masks and socially distant for a few
Speaker 1: months while the scientists got on top of this, we
Speaker 1: would have had a much different outcome in the United States.
Speaker 1: We would have had hundreds of thousands of fewer deaths.
Speaker 1: And it's as simple as that. You know, he enabled
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of people into frankly some not great
Speaker 1: thinking on the problem that this was somehow elimination of freedom.
Speaker 1: We didn't have that problem in nineteen eighteen with the
Speaker 1: flu that came through, people all mask up and wanted
Speaker 1: to mask up and wanted to, you know, keep themselves healthy.
Speaker 1: You know this this this nonsense that you you're entitled
Speaker 1: to not keep yourself healthy. Okay, fine, but that's that's
Speaker 1: kind of a silly thought, right. I mean, you just
Speaker 1: go out and step in the street and hope the
Speaker 1: bus doesn't rend you over just because well, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: got to be free to walk in the street. No,
Speaker 1: there's there's sensible limitations on what you can and can't do,
Speaker 1: and wearing a mask during a time of pandemic as
Speaker 1: a sensible limitation in my view. And and it's got
Speaker 1: nothing to do with freedom. It's got to do with
Speaker 1: sensible taking care of yourself and takeing care of others.
Speaker 1: But enough for the message. But it's it's it's gonna
Speaker 1: be a problem because it's always going to be unvaccinated
Speaker 1: people who look into and new two as I said,
Speaker 1: generate these mutations of the of the virus. Finally, some
Speaker 1: states are offering, like Ohio offering to give a million
Speaker 1: dollars to five vaccinated lottery winners, and New Jersey was
Speaker 1: offering a beer with a vaccination. Do you approve of those? Yeah? Absolutely,
Speaker 1: anything to get shots in arms. It's it's only going
Speaker 1: to be to our our global benefit. I mean, we
Speaker 1: we have to get shots in our own arms. We
Speaker 1: have to get shots and all the arms in Africa
Speaker 1: and Asia, you know, And it's going to be a
Speaker 1: multi year project. This virus will persist long after, you know,
Speaker 1: the next few weeks, and it's the next few weeks
Speaker 1: is going to be confusion in America as as shop
Speaker 1: owners and business owners trying to figure out what the
Speaker 1: bring workforces back and what the rules of the road
Speaker 1: are going to be. But the only way to really
Speaker 1: get on top of it is to get you know,
Speaker 1: vast majority of the population vaccinated against this thing. Thanks Rob.
Speaker 1: That's Rob Fuller, Apartment Nelson Hardeman Cat Employers legally separate
Speaker 1: vaccinated and unvaccinated workers by shift or floor, for example,
Speaker 1: and if they can, is it a good idea? Joining
Speaker 1: me is Bloomberglan Labor and Employment reporter Paige Smith. Can
Speaker 1: employers generally require workers to get a COVID nineteen vaccine? Yes, absolutely,
Speaker 1: so I think that, you know, as more vaccines become
Speaker 1: widely available, generally and legally, most employers really can require
Speaker 1: workers to receive the vaccine upon returning to to work.
Speaker 1: But you know, I would say that those mandates have
Speaker 1: been sort of rare um and there are a lot
Speaker 1: of workplaces that are going to continue to have a
Speaker 1: sort of mix of vaccinated workers and unvaccinated workers. But
Speaker 1: legally employers can require that. So now the question can
Speaker 1: employers legally separate vaccinated and unvaccinated workers? Definitely. So we've
Speaker 1: been hearing from a number of attorneys that they've been
Speaker 1: feelding requests from employers about whether they could segregate you know,
Speaker 1: vaccinated from unvaccinated workers. So we decided to sort of
Speaker 1: dig into it with with this. But the answer that
Speaker 1: we sort of found was that yes, employers can legally
Speaker 1: separate vaccinated workers from unvaccinated workers, whether it's by you know,
Speaker 1: having a shift that is of unvaccinated workers or having
Speaker 1: a floor for vaccinated workers. There are sort of a
Speaker 1: few ways that people could feasibly do that. But UM,
Speaker 1: what we also found is that folks are sort of
Speaker 1: cautioning against it, and there has been recent guidance that
Speaker 1: says that fully, if you're fully inoculated against COVID nineteen,
Speaker 1: folks can mostly shed their mass in the workplace. But UM, legally, yes,
Speaker 1: workers can be separated based on their vaccination status. So
Speaker 1: now are there any risks? For example, if a worker
Speaker 1: won't get vaccinated because of religious reasons or religious objections,
Speaker 1: could that worker then file some kind of lawsuit if
Speaker 1: that worker is segregated. So any sort of decision like
Speaker 1: this UM in the workplace comes with some comes with
Speaker 1: some legal risks. But I think that in this situation,
Speaker 1: segregating workers definitely poses some UM discrimination risks because there
Speaker 1: are workers who can't get vascinated because of health reasons
Speaker 1: or for because of religious objections for example. So you know,
Speaker 1: if you have a worker who won't receive the shop
Speaker 1: based on disability or religious belief UM, then they could
Speaker 1: theoretically come back and say to the employer, you know
Speaker 1: you're discriminating against me being because of UM. Because of
Speaker 1: that or UM. If those workers I should be clear,
Speaker 1: if those workers suffer negative consequences as a result of
Speaker 1: being segregated because of their disability or religious um belief.
Speaker 1: For example, they could bring allegations of discrimination against an employer.
Speaker 1: So one lawyer told you that any company contemplating even
Speaker 1: contemplating a separation policy should survey workers. What kind of
Speaker 1: survey would you do? That's a good question, I think
Speaker 1: part of it as well as were We're not totally
Speaker 1: sure at this point in time how many employers have
Speaker 1: contemplated separating workers based on vaccination status. Um. We haven't
Speaker 1: heard of this sort of being a widely implemented policy,
Speaker 1: So I can't speak exactly to what sort of survey
Speaker 1: would be conducted, But we do know that employers are
Speaker 1: thinking about this and that they have asked their attorneys
Speaker 1: how they should proceed. And employers are allowed to ask
Speaker 1: employees if they've been vaccinated. Correct? Correct. If employers wish
Speaker 1: to ask employees whether they've been backcinated, they need to
Speaker 1: do so in a way that asked all employees that
Speaker 1: you know, you sort of can't single out one or
Speaker 1: two employees. Mac have you been vaccinated? Needs to be
Speaker 1: sort of a company wide and business related inquiry. You
Speaker 1: talked to Nicole Greason, director of occupational Hygiene and Safety
Speaker 1: for the Duke University Health System, said it's just not
Speaker 1: worth the logistical hassle of trying to separate vaccinated and
Speaker 1: unvaccinated workers. What did she mean? You know, if you're
Speaker 1: in a workplace and you're going to go through the
Speaker 1: process of separating these workers, you know that that's quite
Speaker 1: a culture shift, just from you know, legal considerations aside.
Speaker 1: That's a huge culture shift to say, Okay, you're on
Speaker 1: the unvaccinated shifts, have a great work day. Um, I
Speaker 1: think that is. That's sort of what was um, what
Speaker 1: was implied. But I should also say that a number
Speaker 1: of experts pointed out that, you know, dividing workers wouldn't
Speaker 1: really be feasible and also might not make sense from
Speaker 1: a health and safety standpoint, because workers who are fully
Speaker 1: vaccinated and not wearing masks are already at a low
Speaker 1: risk of infection, and you know, mixing them in with
Speaker 1: unvaccinated workers who are wearing masks wouldn't necessarily increase infection risks.
Speaker 1: That's at least what the health and safety experts told us.
Speaker 1: So page did most of the lawyers you spoke to
Speaker 1: think that you could separate workers, but it just wasn't
Speaker 1: a good idea to do that, correct exactly. That was
Speaker 1: sort of the takeaways the idea that legally you're permitted
Speaker 1: to do it. Employee employers are asking about how they
Speaker 1: can do it and if they should do it, and
Speaker 1: lawyers are essentially saying, yes, you can do it, but
Speaker 1: it's probably not a great idea one about OSHA. Has
Speaker 1: OSHA released any new guidance since the CDC came out
Speaker 1: with the with the guidance that people who were vaccinated
Speaker 1: can basically go mask less in most places. OSHA has
Speaker 1: said that, um, that employers should essentially follow the new
Speaker 1: CDC mask guidance, So they have kind of responded after
Speaker 1: the new CDC guidance was released, but um, it was
Speaker 1: just sort of an advice to say that, um, you know,
Speaker 1: they'll be updating their materials on their website and to
Speaker 1: for employers to check back essentially. And you spoke to
Speaker 1: Debbie Berkowitz, the National Employment Law Projects, Workers Safety and
Speaker 1: Health Program Director, and she said, in some settings, there's
Speaker 1: really no way to segregate workers. Absolutely, So there are
Speaker 1: you know, you can imagine that there are workplaces where
Speaker 1: this could be an option, for example, if you're in
Speaker 1: an office building or sort of a corporate setting. But
Speaker 1: there are also places where this just isn't feasible at all.
Speaker 1: It's you know, kind of silly to imagine. If you're
Speaker 1: in a grocery store for example, um, you know, trying
Speaker 1: to separate your vaccinated from your unvaccinated workers, or if
Speaker 1: you're in a factory setting or in a warehouse for examples,
Speaker 1: just the idea of segregating he folks is is not
Speaker 1: really feasible. So now some states are passing their own
Speaker 1: rules about this, and they seem to fall into two camps.
Speaker 1: So some are considering approving employers requiring proof of vaccinations
Speaker 1: before workers can stop wearing a face mask. Tell us
Speaker 1: about those states and what they're thinking about doing. Yes,
Speaker 1: So there are a number of states that have sort
Speaker 1: of weighed in on this since um, you know, since
Speaker 1: the CDC really it's it's guidance, so um, the Oregon
Speaker 1: Occupational Safety UM Agency has weighed in, and and California
Speaker 1: has weighed in as well. So Oregon, for example, issued
Speaker 1: some guidance that said that employers must verify that a
Speaker 1: worker is fully vaccinated before having them you know, giving
Speaker 1: them the opportunity to remove face coverings and sort of
Speaker 1: ignore social distancing requirements. But um, you know, to flip
Speaker 1: over to California, California is saying that, UM, I should
Speaker 1: say they're proposing because it hasn't been fully approved yet.
Speaker 1: UM that employer has must have documentation to show that
Speaker 1: a worker has been vaccinated before sort of permitting them
Speaker 1: to relax UM masking and social distancing requirements. So that changed.
Speaker 1: The California change hasn't yet been fully approved. But those
Speaker 1: are sort of two examples of states weighing in on
Speaker 1: the issue, and other states are passing laws that do
Speaker 1: the opposite, that limit employer's ability to set workplace policies
Speaker 1: based on whether or not a worker is vaccinated or
Speaker 1: not vaccinated. Yes, so, for example on UM earlier this
Speaker 1: month May in on May seven, montanas Um implemented a
Speaker 1: law that banned employers from making hiring decisions or setting
Speaker 1: rules based on vaccination status. Are there just a few
Speaker 1: states doing this addressing this issue at this point in time?
Speaker 1: Are a few states that we you know, as we
Speaker 1: sort of mentioned, that have weighed in on the issue, UM,
Speaker 1: but we can't be sure of who else might weigh in,
Speaker 1: especially since the cd C guidance is still relatively new.
Speaker 1: Thanks for being on the Bloomberg Laws Show page. That's
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Law, Labor Unemployment Reporter Paid Smith and that's it
Speaker 1: for the edition of the Bloomberg Law Show. Remember you
Speaker 1: can always at the latest legal news on our Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Law Podcast. You can find them on Apple Podcast, Spotify
Speaker 1: and at www dot Bloomberg dot com slash podcast slash Law.
Speaker 1: I'm June Grossow. Thanks so much for listening. Please turn
Speaker 1: into The Bloomberg Law Show every weeknight at ten pm
Speaker 1: Eastern idear on Bloomberg Radio.